Linked
by Itsumi Nekoma
Summary: Three years ago Rhys had gained the rights to Atlas from Jacks office and had become both the owner and the CEO of the giant company. Many people around him thought he had it all, big office lots of money. But those who knew him noticed he wasn't the same person he was before... (This is a Rhack Fic)
1. Chapter 1

The Atlas man tossed and turned throughout the night as he tried to sleep, but he knew that it was futile. Nights were just like this for him now and he couldn't sleep without feeling on guard. After finally giving up he rolled out of bed and approached his dresser, looking in the small mirror that hung above it he saw the bags that had gathered under his eyes.

"Oh man, you look like shit Rhys." He mumbled to himself as he observed himself in the mirror. He stood there for a good minute, deep in thought before he eventually looked away and grabbed some clean clothes, throwing them on as quickly as he could.

After getting dressed he walked down the empty hall like he did every morning and admired his surroundings as thoughts flooded his mind.

Three years ago he had gained the rights to Atlas from Jacks office and had become both the owner and the CEO of the giant company and yet every day it felt like he was just starting off. He felt pride and fear as he knew that he was in charge of thousands now, from people he knew from Hyperion and from people that had joined him on Pandora. Their lives were all in his hands now, and as every time he thought about this he realized just how much it terrified him to know that he was their hero and they trusted them with their lives. He had no idea how to run a company even after three years.

As he entered his office he looked at the small images of allies that he had lost in over time as they hung on his walls to remind him daily of their sacrifices, all to help him out. He walked up the few steps that lead to his giant desk and looked over at the final image that sat on his desk, a photo of Jack. He would have hung it on the walls with the others but he knew everyone's feelings towards Jack and he had been the only one to sit in the chair so no one could possibly see it unless they came to his side of the desk. He knew that they would freak out if they saw it but he just couldn't help it, Jack had been his role model and he wanted to be just like him for the longest time. He knew that most would say Jack was evil and beyond fixing but all Rhys could remember was his last moments. Jack begging for his life was engraved into his mind, his asking him to spare him and yet he had to rip out the eye and do this, right? He thought about this as he sat down and pulled out a small box with a lock on it, unlocking it and looking at the Cybernetics with Jack inside of it. He knew that he couldn't tell anyone about him keeping them though. Everyone here hated Jack, including his own friends and if he told his secrets to them they would freak out.

The brunette woman watched as the CEO walked down the halls looking more distracted then usual. She followed him quietly for a while until he walked into his office, knowing she wouldn't be able to get into his office unless he let her in she finally gave up and walked towards the cafeteria to get first pick at breakfast until the others joined her there.

As she entered the large cafeteria and grabbed a plate of what looked like delicious food she saw only two people there, or well Robots as Loader bot and Gortys were both there awake and waiting for others to arrive as well. Sitting across from them a smile crossed her face.  
"Hey there." She said, sitting the plate she had grabbed down and starting to dig into it immediately.

"Fiona!" Gortys cheered, in her normal happy voice, they had to expand the cafeteria to fit her inside of it and have room for others after her she grew.  
"When did you return Fi?" Another voice asked as they got closer and sat down next to her. She recognized the voice even before she saw her face, and turning over she hugged her sister tightly, not having seen her in months.

"Sasha!" Fiona cheered, her smile growing larger.

The small group was joined by an added Vaughn minutes later who said a simple hello to Fiona and started to eat quickly.

"So, how are you guys it's been what, 8 months now?" She asked them as she stuffed her face full of the food. One thing she had to thank the old hyperions for was their taste in food. They always made sure you enjoyed it and hell it was a lot better then eating skag meat every day. As they sat they shared their stories of what had happened within the last 8 months and as more time went by more people joined their table. Although she still didn't understand why Rhys hadn't shown up yet.

"Where is Rhys?" Fiona finally asked, knowing he had gone to his office earlier she had expected him to eventually come over and join them all for breakfast but it had been three hours now and he hadn't shown up.

"Oh, uhh Rhys. Yeah he umm..." Vaughn said quietly.

She noticed that everyone had looked uncomfortable with the subject but she wouldn't give up until they gave her a direct answer on what was going on.

"Rhys doesn't really join us much anymore." Sasha said finally after no one else would say anything. "He always locks himself in his office with no one in it and does who know what. We found that it's best to leave him that way though. Vaughn asked him what was wrong one day and well..." She looked over at Vaughn letting him talk.

"It wasn't Rhys. He looked fake, his eyes had bags under them from not sleeping. I asked him what was wrong and he just smiled and said nothing, but even his smile...You can tell something is bother him but he won't let any of us know what is wrong." He added after she stopped talking.

"When did this start? I mean he was fine when I left 8 months ago, or he did a hell of a great job at hiding that he something was up." She said, looking at all of them.  
They all shrugged except for Vaughn who looked as if he were trying to solve an equation. All of them turned to look at him when he spoke again.

"About 4 months ago we were invaded by a group of people but that happens often here but anyway uh, Rhys and their leader talked before we beat them and he seemed like he changed after that. No one knows what they said to him though. Perhaps you can get something out of him, I mean he tells you more then half of us." The short man shrugged as he stood up, looking at the clock. "Anyway, I have work now though, so if excuse me."

Slowly more and more people excused themselves to go to their jobs leaving Fiona by herself to think. She wasn't going to accept that idiot locking himself up without telling anyone a reason. Standing up she walked around people and guards to go to his office, knocking on the large metal door, hearing it echo through the halls, she also felt a few people turn their heads to look at her in surprise.  
"Rhys open the damn door!" She yelled as she knocked.

Rhys jumped and almost threw the small box he was holding when he heard someone knock at the door. About to yell back for them to go away he heard who it was. "Fiona?" He said, closing the box and stuffing it in a drawer before going over to open to open the door for her.

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes." She teased, a grin spreading across her face.

"Nice to see you too Fi." He smiled back and hugged her quickly before letting her in and shutting the door behind them. They slowly made there way back to his desk and he heard her speak as he was sitting down at his chair.

"What's that?" She asked, gesturing towards another door with multiple locks on it. "It wasn't there last time I was here."  
"That? Oh it's nothing important, just like a closet." He commented, crossing his arms and leaning back.

"You really changed this office since I last was here." She said looking around, she noticed the photos of those dead and saw Scooter among them. Thoughts from that trip came back to her. She hadn't known him that well but scooter helped her out when she needed it and he was a kind person who didn't deserve what happened to him. Her own thoughts were interrupted when he spoke again.

"So, you are back already? What has it been? A few months?" He questioned, looking up from his writing for a moment to look at her.

"Eight months. I was nearby so I decided to stop in, not like I had much to do anyway. I have to wait for my next lead on the vault." She said, looking at how uncomfortable he was. She knew he obviously didn't want her to be there in that room but was being kind about it.

"What is up with you, Rhys? I heard you've been acting different and honestly sitting here I can tell you aren't the Rhys we all know." She asked bluntly making him visually tense up a bit.

"Nothing is up with me, Fiona. You can just tell everyone I just have tons of paperwork and am a busy person, you know trying to run the company alone." He replied quickly, brushing her off.

The pair stared at each other for a moment before she stood up and walked over towards the other metal door he claimed was a closet and pointed to it. "What is really in here Rhys?" She asked, looking at the locks, trying to unlock a few.

He slammed his hands down on the messy desk in front of himself and pushed himself up off of his chair. "I said it's a closet Fiona! Now if you excuse me I have a lot of work, why don't you go spend the day with Sasha or something because I am too busy to be bothered right now!" He moved around to stand in between her and the door, gesturing towards the exit.

"Whatever, you are gonna end up losing all of your friends if you keep acting like that though Rhys." She snapped in response, walking out the room without another word.

Rhys waited until she was out of sight before relaxing and turning towards the door, putting his hand on the one scanner beside it and then opening a few more locks he went inside of it.

He thought about how he could have handled that differently but he just couldn't have anyone knowing his secrets. He couldn't have anyone stop him and he knew she would have.

After walking down a surprisingly long hallway he got to a simple coffin sitting in the middle of the room. Going over to it the young man pushed open the top enough to look in and see it and he stared down at the preserved body of Jack that sat inside of it.

"Soon Jack." He said quietly to himself, looking down at the lifeless man.


	2. Chapter 2

Rhys paced back and forth as he thought about everything. Should he hide the body elsewhere? He knew that Fiona would go after it if it stayed here, would she even be able to get in though? What if she did, she would surely destroy the body so he couldn't bring back Jack, no one would listen to his reasoning behind it. If anyone else ever found about it...

He shook his head and pushed the coffin shut. That wasn't going to happen. The brunette man was determined to keep this hidden at least until he could bring Jack back.

Nonetheless he had decided to worry about this later for now he had work to do. Walking down the hall and locking the door behind him he made his way to his desk. This was when he saw Vaughn had called him four times when he was in there.

"What the-?" He murmured to himself as he reached down to call him back but had heard someone outside of the doors trying to break it open.

"Bandits." He whispered before reaching into his desk and grabbing the box inside of it. Ducking down he had been able to hide himself just as the metal doors had swung open to his office.

"Okay, good 'es not here. Go search the room!" A woman ordered from inside of the room. "They are gonna catch on soon if we don't hurry! So find it and lets go!"

Rhys eyes flickered around in front of him as he thought about what to do. His options were either to run off and risk getting shot or continue to hide and hope he didn't get caught. Or there was always..

His eyes lowered to look down at the box. He had to do it, he wasn't a great fighter and he knew only one person who could kill these bandits without ease. Only one person that could be a hero and help him in this moment, so slowly he opened up the box and his pocket knife and started to pull his cybernetics out of his head before inserting the new ones in carefully.

 _Please let this work and not backfire on me._ He had thought to himself.

Fiona watched as Vaughn paced around the room. His expression was filled with concern as he muttered to himself.

"Vaughn.." Fiona started, getting no type of response from him. "Vaughn! Stop it, we are trying to stay out of view so they don't shoot at us. As far as they know we have no idea they are here so that means they won't attack us yet."

"Any response?" Sasha asked Vaughn, looking as concerned as he was.  
"Nothing." Vaughn mumbled, shaking his head and starting to walk towards the door. "You guys stay here I am going to go find him."

"Woah, hell no!" Fiona yelled, pulling him back and standing in between him and the door. "That is a suicide mission at the moment. Rhys will be fine..probably. If not then there is nothing that you can do for him if you just end up getting yourself killed!"

"But not helping our _**leader**_ , no our _**friend**_ is traitorous! You wouldn't know Fiona but this is what friends do for each other, they have each others backs!" His voice got louder as he continued to speak.  
"Guys, please calm down both of ya. We have to stay quiet here or else they will notice us." Sasha yelled quietly to both of them. She had stood there for a moment and waited until they calmed down before speaking again. "Now, Fi you know I love you right, I always have your back I mean we are sisters, but Vaughn is right. This is Rhys we are talking about, we need to save him if he is in danger."

Fiona glared at Vaughn as he gave her a smug grin but slowly shook her head and stepped away from the door. "Okay, where would he be at right now?" She questioned, looking out into the hall to make sure no one was near them.

"Well, I'd say his room or office but he could always be at the vault. It has all of our expensive and rare equipment and weapons." Vaughn replied, typing something into his phone. "I am going to try and track his Cybernetics though and it says..he is...in the office. We need to hurry." He pressed a few buttons and shook his head. "There are...6 other living people in the room right now it states."

"Okay, what are we waiting for, lets go save his sorry ass!" Fiona said, making sure her gun had bullets in it.

Vaughn grabbed his own weapons and followed behind the sisters towards the office, hurrying so they didn't get caught by other bandits.

"I can input the emergency code in to shut down the system." Vaughn said, messing with the locks for a bit.

"Hurry Vaughn!" Sasha yelled as she pointed her gun towards the door, ready to fight.

"Shut up, this is a hard process and if I mess up we will be killed on spot!" He yelled, messing with the system locks. "Okay, aaand...got it." He stepped back and saw the doors fly open. Ready to fight he turned his gun inside of the room but lowered it quickly when he saw all of the bandits were dead.  
"Rhys!" Sasha yelled, running into the room and looking around.

"Bro, where are you?!" Vaughn said, looking around the room. "No sign of him and...his eye."  
Looking at the desk they saw the Cybernetics sitting on top of it. He shook his head. "Not good, I can't track him without THIS Cybernetic inside of him. I don't know of any other he could have used so that means he has none in him."  
"Okay, so we do this the old fashioned way." Fiona commented, walking towards the large metal doors that were still open. "Lets split up to cover more ground. Then we can warn others as well."

"Good plan, Fi." Sasha agreed as she left the room.

"Shit..ow...ow." Rhys complained as he walked down the hall, trying to stop the bleeding of his shoulder. "Damn bandit shot my damn shoulder."

" _Congratulations cupcake, wanna prize?"_ A sarcastic voice echoed in his head before flickering in front of him. _"How about killing me again? You fuckers all seem to find enjoyment out of that."_

"Shut up, Jack." Rhys replied, stopping and hiding when he saw another Bandit coming his way.

" _You owe me now though, fucker. I saved your ass back there. No reason too, I should've let you die."_ Jack continued, watching the bandit walk by. _"So why did you plug me back in anyway? You that fucking stupid?"_

"I was trying to find us common grounds of a deal asshole. For now you need to help me or else you won't get out of this head. Or worse I could unplug you and let you sit in the box for another few years." He argued quietly, stopping for a moment when he saw the bandit go by. He felt his arm go on its own and stab her in the chest. He had forgotten that Jack could control his arm for a moment and he shuddered at the thought he could for a moment.

" _What kind of deal, Princess?"_ Jack asked, sounding interested in what he had to say. Good he at least had his interest with making a deal.

"I have your body Jack and I know where everything is to do a revival process."Rhys said, stopping in front of a giant safe and typing in the code.

" _Wait wait...Pumpkin. You have my body?! Oh man, Rhysie maybe you aren't an absolute dick!"_ He cheered, trying to wrap his arm around Rhys but remembering he was just a hologram it went straight through him. _"Oh yeah...oh...well. You get the point!"_

"There are two parts of the deal!" Rhys said, stopping suddenly.  
 _"Of course..fine...what the hell do you want, Rhysie?"_ He asked, sounding a little less enthusiastic.

"One, you help me get rid of these bandits-" Rhys started to say only to be cut off.  
 _"That's easy. Have you met me, killing is like a hobby for me!"_ He replied, laughing a bit. At that moment Rhys pulled out a gun and held it out. Jack controlled his arm and shook his head, pointing to another gun he spoke again. _"Try that one cupcake. If I control you I want a weapon that will really blow their brains out. Now what else do you want? I know that isn't all."_

"Yeah, well second off I want you to help me run Atlas. I have no idea what the hell I am doing Jack." Rhys admitted to him. He was surprised that Jack hadn't tried to kill him already and was going along with his deal.

" _Of course you don't Pumpkin. You are too gentle on everyone. That is why you can't run it properly."_ He nodded at Rhys when he held the gun. _"This works better. Plus it has a faster reload."_  
"So, you get me out of here and you help me run Atlas, _**WITHOUT**_ murdering anyone unless necessary and when I say that I mean they have to be attacking you or threatening our people. Those days are over for you. You agree to those terms and I will bring you back to life by next week." Rhys commented, shutting the safe again and turning to look at Jack. He knew it wouldn't mean anything but he held his hand out. "Deal?"

" _No murder Rhysie? Oh man you have me on a tight leash."_ He commented before staring down at nothing for a while, Rhys was hoping he would take the deal. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed Jacks help with running Atlas. _"Fine, I will take the deal."_

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, Jack taking Rhys hand or where he would have shaken it but since he was a hologram Rhys felt nothing.

"We have a deal then Jack." Rhys said, trying to hide the joy in his tone. He just had to figure out how to tell the rest of the company that Handsome Jack, the one they all hated was going to be the boss of them now.

Oh man this would be fun.


	3. Chapter 3

" _Hey, Pumpkin...Pumpkin!"_ Jack was floating in front of Rhys desk, pestering the younger man as he was trying to fill out some paperwork. After a minute Rhys finally decided to glance up at the hologram with a look that could kill.

"What, Jack?" He growled out, his flesh fingers entangled in his hair as he was writing with his cybernetic arm. _  
"I'm bored, you haven't killed any of your employees all week! What's up with that Mr. CEO?!"_ His voice echoed through the large room as he sat down on the younger brunettes desk. He gestured towards the papers that Rhys had in front of him. _"And what is this nonsense?"_  
"Paperwork. It's for the bandit inci-" He stopped talking as he heard a knock on the door of his office. Once he heard it he muttered to Jack to move aside so he could see better and yelled a 'come in'.

"Hey Bro!" Vaughn called as he walked in and sauntered up to the CEO's desk, sitting down at the chair across from Rhys he smiled a bit before looking at his shoulder. "How's the shoulder?"

Rhys lowered his hand and dropped the pen before smiling at his best friend. "Fine, Fine. Nothing too bad, bro. It's already half healed, hurts a bit but other then that, nothing I haven't dealt with before." He said, looking at his arm for a slight second before looking back at his friend.

Vaughn had found him right after he made the agreement with Jack and got rid of the bandits that were inside of the company.

"So, wanna tell me yet?" Vaughn asked Rhys, causing the man to think back to the conversation before.

" _Bro! There you are, are you...oh my god your shoulder, you were shot!" Vaughn yelled, running up to Rhys who had been talking to Jack but suddenly stopped when he heard Vaughns voice. Despite stopping Vaughn must have still heard him because he had a face and looked around. "Who were you talking to?"  
"Oh you know. Just me, myself and I. All alone, no one else with me. Just me." He said, looking at the shorter man. He could hear Jack laughing from his ear and wanted to turn to glare at him but knew that Vaughn would notice.  
"Real Smooth, Pumpkin." Jack said, still laughing about Rhys's lack of subtlety. He pointed at Vaughn a moment later. "God, this nerd got even more disturbingly buff."  
Rhys rolled his eyes which brought attention to them for the other man._

" _Hey, did you change eyes?" Vaughn questioned, stepping closer to his friend, causing Rhys to turn around at the right moment._

" _Oh, Hey. Hey! Fiona, Sasha!" He waved them over and smiled before they walked over and started to talk to him, asking him what happened. He told them a bent version of the truth, excluding Jack from any of it. Saying told them he took care of the bandits alone and that it was safe to go back to work and quickly excused himself saying something about paperwork._

Rhys shook his head, pulling himself from the memory and looked at Vaughn with a slight smile. "What are you talking about?" He knew clearly what he was talking about but he wanted to avoid this.

"Your eye, it changed colors so that means you changed eyes." Vaughn commented, leaning towards the desk to get slightly closer. "Where'd you even get that eye?" He asked.

"Oh, it was just an old one sitting around." The brunette CEO said, knowing that he couldn't cover up the fact that his eye was indeed different, people were bound to notice and that was going to be his answer.  
Vaughn looked at Rhys with a skeptical expression. He wasn't buying it.

" _Calm down, kiddo. He is gonna believe you if you stay calm. Don't blow it for us."_ The older man said suddenly making Rhys jump a bit at his sudden voice, tapping his fingers down on the desk Rhys looked at Vaughn and gave him a mediocre smile.

"Okay, bro." Vaughn smiled at his best friend as he stood up. "But know if you ever need any of us we are here to talk to you. Fiona, Sasha, Yvette, me."  
"Got it." Rhys said, looking down at his papers again before he heard Vaughn call his name one last name before he left the room.

"Yeah?" Rhys questioned, looking to his friend to see what he wanted.

"We are going out drinking tonight after work, we will be at The Purple Skag at 10. Come by if you aren't too busy, we all miss hanging out with you." Vaughn waved and walked out the door before Rhys could give any excuses.

Rhys looked at Jack the moment Vaughn left and sighed, visibly looking more relaxed as he slouched in his large chair.

" _God, you were so tense that I thought you were gonna blow everything."_ Jack said, sitting on Rhys desk again as he was before, he pointed down at the papers. _"At least it was more exciting then what we were doing."_

Rhys rolled his eyes and went back to fill out the stack of papers. "I need to fill out the file on the bandit attack. It's just protocol, Jack. You should know that since you use to be CEO of Hyperion."  
Jack shrugged and mumbled something that Rhys ignored, focusing on his papers.

" _The Purple Skag, eh?"_ Jack looked up at the sign as the pair stood outside of the building.

Rhys had just nodded so slightly as he didn't want anyone to see it. He hadn't thought of how he was going to tell the others about Jack and he didn't want them to find out in a bad way and overreact. Hell, he didn't even know if he was going to tell them until Jack was already back and healthy. Pushing those thoughts aside he entered the bar and instantly saw the familiar faces around him.

Vaughn was the first to turn and see him.  
"Bro, you came!" Vaughn jumped up and ran over to him, hugging him tightly before gently pushing him towards the others to sit with them.

The purple Skag had been crowded that night and Rhys had recognized many of his friends and other people he knew around him.

"Well, if it ain't Mista bigshot!" A thick accented voice called from the stairs leading down to the bar. Shortly after he saw August come into sight, holding his arms out. "What's the Pleasure?"

" _Heeey it's the idiot!"_ Jack yelled from across the room, still making his way into the room, looking at people on his way in.

"Hey there August!" Rhys said, ignoring Jack, he waved over to the blonde man was approaching him slowly.

" _Wait, a minute. I thought we hated this idiot. What happened?"_ Jack asked, watching as Rhys continued to ignore him and shake the blonde mans hand.

"Vaughn told me the others were coming out here and I had finished the work for the day, so I decided a drink or two wouldn't kill me." The brunette said as he settled down in a chair between Fiona and Vaughn.

He watched the blonde man sit across from him, right next to Sasha. Trying to look at them he was interrupted by the sudden view of Jack, laying down on the table in front of him. He hadn't said much for once until August wrapped an arm around Sasha. Jack burst out in laughter at the sight, sitting up and pointing to Rhys.

" _Oh man, you...hahaha. He stole your girl!"_ He was laughing too loud for Rhys liking as he heard the others around him trying to have a conversation with him.

Unable to handle it any longer he stood up abruptly which earned him some confused looks. He had just simply pointed to the bar though and they understood.

Approaching the bar he waited a moment before a woman walked over to take his order.

"What can I get for ya?" She asked, looking him over as she slid a drink to an older man who quickly reacted, grabbing it and chugging the drink.

Glancing back at his friends he smiled, sitting down a pile of money and pointing to them. "Give them whatever they want for the night. I'll just take a beer for myself."  
She looked down at the money, not reacting for a moment before nodding and rushing around to get him a beer giving him a small smile before walking over to ask the others what they would like.

Rhys started to enjoy his drink in silence at the bar away from anyone else when Jack had to open his mouth again.

" _So, what is up with you and bitchy blade over there?"_ Jack asked with a grin.

"Bitchy...what the?" Rhys looked over and realized he was talking about Sasha. "She's my friend, Jack. Don't be an asshole."

" _Aw, come on, pumpkin don't be so angry."_ He chuckled, sitting down at the stool next to Rhys. _"So gonna tell me, Cupcake. I'd like a bit of a recap so I'm not totally confused on what the hell happened since last time I was here."_

"Later." Rhys said quietly as he glanced over and saw Sasha approach him, a drink in her hand.

Rhys felt his hand grip onto his drink tightly nerves getting to him at if he was caught by talking to Jack for so long, but he was instantly relieved when she gave him a smile and said a 'thank you for the drinks.'

"It's odd seeing you out and about." She commented, taking a sip and letting her green eyes look at his. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, Sash. I uhh...actually am gonna head out soon." He said, avoiding eye contact to look down at his drink.

The brunette woman placed her hand on his arm for a moment before smiling and walking off, without saying another word to him.

"C'mon." Rhys said quietly, aiming it towards Jack, feeling a headache from the large group of people at the bar now. It had been filling up more and more.

 _'Popular Night'_ Rhys had to think to himself as he slid out the front doors without any issues. Once he was out of sight of any eyes he found it was safe to speak again.

If Rhys was the same as he was years ago he would have jumped at the sudden hologram appearing in front of him, but this was Jack and he had no power over him now, and if he did try anything Rhys was confident in beating him again. Walking past him he rested his hands at his sides for a moment.

The older man stayed by his side, arms crossed and glancing around at the scenery that laid around them.

Psychos running around, dead bodies, then there was the smell that was around them from the bodies. The smell was similar to trash that has added up over months and molded and it really stung until you got use to it, which most who lived on Pandora had gotten use to it, including the CEO.

" _So, gonna tell me what happened when I was gone?"_ Jack asked, stepping over a dead body and chuckled a bit at it. He glanced over at Rhys as they spoke, waiting for his answer.

Rhys took a deep breath and just slowly walked as he spoke to Jack, avoiding the crowded roads so he didn't have to stop as often.

"Well, there isn't much to tell you. After you died I took your rights to Atlas. Got in there and fixed myself up a new arm and eye, didn't destroy your eye though, obviously. After that, things unrolled, slowly. Got captured by a masked man, who turned out to be Loader Bot, we fought the vault monster, obviously beat it." He stared off towards the road they wanted to be on, he had decided to just go with the quick version, leaving out small details. "All old Hyperion workers now work under me at Atlas, along with some new friends, Fiona went on to do her own vault hunting thing, but has always had a home at Atlas. That's about all."

" _No, That's not all. What happened with the vault? What did you see?"_ He questioned, not looking at Rhys but straight ahead towards the building. _"_ _Also, why do you want to bring me back so bad?"_

Rhys reached into his pocket and pulled out a small drive to show Jack. "Nakayama had a lot of information on you before your death." He thought about when he found the information on Jack, along with the body and remembered how relieved he was to be able to hide his find from the others long enough to move the body to his office one late night when he told everyone to go out and relax.

" _Oh, yeah. The creepy man obsessed with me. Ughh, what does he even have on there?"_ Jack had to question looking at the drive.

"Well, pretty much everything on your life, from your start to your death and well even longer." He gestured towards Jack as he said the last part. He paused for a moment before saying the next part. "Sorry about Angel, I know how she died now and...that must have been hard."  
Jacks face looked pained for a second there at the mention of his daughter but he quickly shook it off and spoke again.

" _Interesting, perhaps I could get a look at that at some point, Princess? Still a few things I don't quite remember."_ He commented.  
Rhys looked at him for a moment then nodded. "Yeah, I don't see why you couldn't."

Jack smirked and looked down at Rhys. _"_ _See, I'm not a bad guy. We are..'bonding' or whatever this is."_

The younger man had to pause for a moment to think about that. Jack was being oddly kind to him despite everything that happened. He decided that he would worry about that later, for now he had bigger things to worry about.


	4. Chapter 4

" _Rise and shine, Cupcake!"_ Jack yelled, floating above Rhys bed watching the younger man as he slept.

The older man had been growing more and more impatient as every day passed, he would take it all out on Rhys by waking Rhys up earlier and earlier to annoy the young man.

"Ugh, shut up!" Rhys yelled, throwing a pillow at Jack, only to have the pillow hit the wall behind Jack and have Jack burst out laughing.  
 _"Hahahaha, I'm a hologram Rhysie, remember! Which reminds me. Lets go get my body!"_ He landed on the floor and started to walk towards the door.

"Woah, no no. Wait, Jack." The younger man stopped him, rubbing his head as he sat up slowly. "I told you, we won't be able to do it until I have a clear opening, they are suspicious of me and know something is up and I can't just walk out the front door with your body. We need to plan this, plan how to get the body to where all the tech is. It'd help more if we had people to help us, but quite frankly you pissed everyone off and they all hate you."

" _Wow, harsh Rhysie."_ The hologram man joked, chuckling a bit. _"You make enemies when you are the hero, what can I say, Rhysie."_

"Jack." Rhys started, looking over at Jack.

" _What, Pumpkin?"_  
"Shut up." Rhys finished, laying back down and throwing his blanket over his head and trying to fall back asleep.

" _Rhysie, why aren't we out the front door right now?"_ Jack growled out only seconds later, gesturing towards the door.

"Because, I have night guards Jack and quite frankly, while you are a hologram who doesn't need sleep, I do!" Rhys shouted, growing more irritated at the fact he was still being kept awake at three in the morning. "Talk to me in a few hours and maybe I won't think about ripping my cybernetic eye out and crushing it."

Rhys sipped on his coffee as he shuffled through papers. It was nice to be up with his coffee at 8 am, when he was suppose to be up in the first place. It all would have been perfect though if the older hologram wasn't staring at him with a look that could kill and his arms crossed over his chest.

"What?" Rhys finally mumbled after ten minutes of feeling the gaze on him, for the first time he turned to actually look at the hologram.  
 _"When are we getting my body back?"_ Jack practically growled, arms crossed and his eyes narrowed as he watched Rhys.

"Soon Ja-"  
 _"Uh uh, don't say soon, Rhysie. I'm being a nice guy but quite frankly you are starting to piss me off. You told me I could look at what Nakayama had on me, I haven't been able to do that yet. You told me I'd have my body back soon, I obviously don't have that yet either. I saved your sorry ass from those bandits and made a fair deal with you, plus I haven't even tried to kill you or your friends, now you need to start to pay me back."_ Jack growled, his face now inches away from Rhys. _"And I don't want soon I want NOW, Rhys!"_

Yes he knew that he told himself he wasn't scared of Jack, he was a hologram for christ sake, he couldn't really hurt him and if he did Rhys knew how to beat him but watching him an inch away with a murderous look on his face and calling him by his real name rather then his normal cheesy yet enjoyable nicknames, made Rhys remember just who he was messing with. He may be on good terms with him for now, but that didn't mean this wasn't Handsome Jack, the man who was notorious for killing people that even looked at him the wrong way.

"Y-Yeah, I know Jack." He stuttered, running his fingers through his hair before looking down at his desk. "So what is YOUR big plan on getting your body to the lab? It wasn't exactly easy to get in here and the only reason I was able to was because the group of guards were tired and I convinced them that it was something different."

Jack sat in the hair across from Rhys and kicked his legs up on the desk, not speaking as he was obviously thinking about it.

" _Kill 'em?"_ He suggested.

"I can't kill my own fucking guards!" Rhys yelled back, irritated that the man would even suggest that. But again, this was Jack, the man known for killing.

After that they went back to silence and sat like that for what seemed like hours. Occasionally Jack would mutter some ridiculous suggestion that Rhys would instantly shut down because most involved death or violence in some way.

" _Lets just enlist your creepy ass buff friend in this. He's got a little brain in that small body of his."_ Jack suggested finally after an hour of thinking about it.

"Woah, are you actually suggesting this? Out of all people I expected you to say tell him as a last resort." Rhys chuckled a bit.

" _Yeah, yeah. I know you have to tell him anyway and he seems like he'll be the most relaxed about this."_ Jack commented, gesturing towards the Echo device

The younger man placed his hand on it and sat there for a moment. He hadn't wanted anyone to know yet, he had no idea what he was going to say to them and was going to wait for Jack to come back before saying anything, that way they wouldn't think he was either going insane or try to stop him.

Finally giving in and realizing they had no other plan, besides the murdering his own employees plans which he really didn't want to do, he picked it up and called Vaughn.

"Ya called bro?" Vaughn asked, strolling into his office and taking a seat in a chair, which luckily wasn't the one Jack was still sitting in.

"Yeah. I uhh I have to ask you for a favor Vaughn. Like a, very important life changing favor." he mumbled, standing up slowly with the key to get into where Jacks body was.

"What's this about, Rhys? Don't worry the financial situation is fine we just need to-" Vaughn was cut off when Rhys spoke again.

"Vaughn, this isn't about anything with accounting or..with anything and our company. Well, actually it kinda does but, not in the same way." He walked over and unlocked the door, swinging it open and walking down into the hallway. Vaughn followed shortly behind him, not waiting to be invited but knowing to just follow.

Slowly they came to a stop and Rhys started to explain stuff about Jack telling him everything, starting with the body, which he showed to him, then going to other stuff like how he found the tech to revive him, then the bandit attack and what really happened, and how Jack was in his head right now and the entire time Vaughn just stood there.

His jaw dropped and he just, stood there. Looking as if he was slowly trying to process the information but not reacting at all to it.

" _Great, ya broke him!"_ Jack laughed after a moment, watching Vaughn stand there. _"Is there like a restart button for this nerd? How do you-"_  
"Rhys." Vaughn started. "Why?"

"Listen, bro. I know you are probably angry but I have my reasons and I can't really tell you about them right now." He mumbled. "I also get if you don't want to help me but at the very least don't tell the others about this."

Jack looked impatient as Vaughn hadn't spoken again for a while, Jack was pacing back and forth as he gestured towards the shorter man. _"We don't have all century Rhys! If he's not gonna help we need to find another plan!"_

"Jack relax and just go away for a moment." He mumbled quietly so only Jack could hear it.

Jack rolled his eyes but vanished from Rhys sight regardless, leaving the two friends alone.  
"Vaughn, please at least talk to me about this." Rhys spoke softly, reaching out to put his hand on his friends arm.

"Yeah." Vaughn mumbled under his breath, so quiet even Rhys couldn't hear it.

"What was that?" Rhys questioned.

"I said yes, Rhys. I will help you out. This isn't for the asshole though, this is all for you and I want you to know if this goes bad I will say a big I told you so afterwards." Vaughn commented, crossing his arms. "Besides I don't have much of a choice but to help you. We are best friends so I guess I'm stuck with whatever crazy ideas you come up with."

"Oh, thank you!" The brunette wrapped his arms around the shorter man in seconds and squeezed him tightly in a hug.

"Yeah, yeah. Just tell me what I need to do." Vaughn said, smiling at his friend regardless.

" _So the nerds in? Great, lets figure out a plan now, Rhysie."_ Jack said, appearing in the corner of the room with a grin on his face. _"Time to get my life back."_


	5. Chapter 5

"So everyone remembers what they have to do?" Vaughn asked, looking at Rhys.

Rhys met his friends eyes before he looked at Jack who was grinning. Rhys just nodded as a yes to his friend.

" _Oh man, this..this is gonna be fun, Cupcake!"_ Jack commented, clearly enjoying the plan that they had come up with and the fact he was going to have his body back soon. Rhys on the other hand was a little more anxious about it, knowing what he had to lose if this turned against him.

"You sure it is a good idea to include her in our plan? I mean she's kinda..." Rhys started to speak but shook his head for a moment before speaking yet again. "She did sell us out once, what makes us think she wouldn't do it again."

"It's Yvette, bro. She knows she was wrong to do that and she's said sorry. Plus we need the car and weapons anyway so the best way is not to fight but to ask for them." Vaughn responded.

Looking at his best friend then over to Jack. He noticed Jack had even started to nod which made Rhys surprised to see him actually agree with the shorter man, especially since he trusted no one.  
 _"Listen to your friend, Cupcake. It'll all be fine. Besides, if your little friend decides to try and stop me. I'll make sure to rip out her throat."_ The laugh that left Jacks lips was horrifying to the Atlas CEO and Vaughn seemed to notice this by asking a quick _'What did he say?'_ Only followed by Rhys responding with _'Jacks just being Jack.'_

A smirk crossed Jacks hologram body before he marched ahead of them, ignoring the pair. _"Body time, kiddo!"_ He cheered loudly.

"Come on Vaughn, lets go I guess." Rhys said, standing close to his friend as they followed the hologram out the door.

"So you want a car?" Yvette questioned. "And guns?"

"Yep." Vaughn responded for the tenth time since they had gotten there. If he was worried he was doing a great job at hiding it.

Rhys on the other hand was starting to grow nervous as he was tapping his fingers at the counter that was in between the three and Yvette. Then there was Jack who just had the widest grin on his face and looked as if he had nothing to worry about.

"Why?" She questioned, looking between the two, obviously seeing how nervous Rhys was.

"Ya know. We have some errands to run. You gonna give us the car or not?" Rhys questioned.  
"Tell me what's going on Rhys." She said, holding the keys to the car they wanted tightly in her hand.

"Handsome Jacks body is alive and we are gonna go get it and put him in it." Vaughn said honestly. "Plus Rhys can see him again."

"What?" She let go, dropping the keys on the counter in pure shock at what he said.

Rhys reached forward and snatched the keys, not in control of his arm for a moment. Turning to glare at Jack who was laughing loudly.

" _Had to grab them before she did again, Cupcake."_ Jack replied.

"Rhys, are you crazy? I knew something was up since I saw your eye had changed colors again. Damn it, I'm going to call Sasha and Fiona up here." She commented.

"He may be crazy, but think we've been best friends since our toddler years and if he's crazy then so am I." Vaughn defended. "So, if you aren't going to help us we will get what we want anyway, Yvette. You won't tell anyone either."

"Come on Yvette, you've known us for what? 12 years now and you're gonna betray your 'friends' again. Just help us get Jacks body back and then I'll...uhh...I'll buy you lunch for a week." Rhys said seeing her eyes light up at the mention of free lunch.

"Okay, fine. Follow me and I'll show you the best weapons you can take with you." She said, leading the way.

Vaughn gave a thumbs up to Rhys before walking directly behind Yvette letting Jack and Rhys walk in the back.

" _You know that addiction to free lunch is a big weakness with your head of requisitions."_ Jack said.

" _We will definitely need to keep an eye on her."_

Rhys nodded, unsure on what to say to Jack at the moment.

The second part of their plan was Rhys least favorite. In fact he hated it more then he did with letting Yvette know about Jack. But here he sat at his large chair that at in his office before they could leave with Jack plugged into the systems.

Even Vaughn looked nervous at this part of the plan which was exclusively Jacks idea. He had commented about taking out security for an hour would be nice for them along with the power.

" _This will keep them distracted."_ Jack said, controlling everything in Atlas. Rhys knew he was right for this. He couldn't just stroll out of Atlas at any moment with no one knowing where he was going. He was the CEO and if he went missing and they didn't know where, it would create Chaos. Plus it would add to more of his friends suspicions. His friends were obviously onto him and he wanted three three, with the help of Yvette over their echos, to get a head start before they even found out about any of this.

" _Are you ready, Rhysie?"_ Jack asked. _"When I turn off the power we have 5 minutes till the backup generator turns on and these morons will just freak the hell out right away."_

"We got it, Jack. Just hurry up." He mumbled, waiting for Jack to hack through some of the systems, sending the power out and quickly leaving and reappearing beside him again before he also got shut down for that time.

Rhys used the light on his hand as a flashlight, leading the way, rushing around the company, avoiding where he knew guards and people would be. After four and a half minutes they got to the main doors, which were locked because of the power outage. As they were waiting for them to turn back on so they could quickly get out Rhys felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Forgot to give you this." Yvette said, appearing behind them, a smile on her face as she handed Rhys a stun baton, just like the one he had used when he came down on Pandora in the first place.

"Thanks, Yvette." He said, smiling to her and holding onto it tightly. He was always fond of weapons like this. "Be careful here and if anyone asks, I went to check up on the power outage."  
"Yeah, yeah, I got it." She pointed to the doors and snuck away before the power went back on.

The second it had they bolted out the doors, making sure no one saw them run to the car and jumped into the car quickly, driving.

"Oh man! I will never get over how much fun it is to do stuff like this!" Vaughn cheered, a smile on his face as Rhys drove.

Jack had been oddly quiet since they left, and if it weren't for the blue glow that Rhys could see in the backseat without even having to turn around he would have thought that Jack wasn't even there.

"So how many days did you say it took to get there?" Vaughn asked Rhys.

"It'll take some time, but I have the money to rent us rooms at some local Inns as stops and even with them if everything works out well we will be there by Thursday night." He said, tapping on the steering wheel as he made a sharp turn.

"Two days, not bad." The shorter man commented, leaning back in his seat and turning on music. Within ten minutes of laying there he had been out cold and there was silence except for the soft music that played.

Jack had been laying down in the backseat as well as he finally spoke to Rhys. _"Hey Rhysie, will you tell me about what you saw in the vault?"_ He asked.

"The vault? Nothing really." Rhys commented as he spoke. "It was kind of a dud. Nothing happened for me, Fiona may have seen something though but we don't really talk about it."  
Jack looked at him for a long moment before nodding. _"Your luck really sucks, Rhysie."_ He said, laughing a bit about it.

"Yeah, just my luck." Rhys said quietly, keeping his eyes on the road.

Jack noticed the look on Rhys face and knew that he wasn't telling him something, but he didn't fret about it yet. He'd figure out what it was eventually. Changing the subject again he looked out the window.

" _How about with my information? You obviously know of my little Angel now. What else did you find out?"_ He asked.

"A lot. I know you were betrayed. That's actually part of the reason I understand why you are the way you are and I wanna help you, I know you were hurt, but you can't hurt other people how they hurt you. As much as it sucks, Karma will come back to get you eventually. Good or bad." Rhys said.

" _Bad Karma is always what I have had. Wife died, daughter died, friends betrayed me, hell I even died. You also blew Hyperion up!"_ He gestured towards the sky even though they were in the car. _"Though, I must say, you seem to have some shitty luck yourself, Rhysie. I mean a cybernetic arm and eye aren't common."_

A chuckle escaped Rhys lips as he nodded. "No, no they are not. But hey, we live and we learn. It's what makes us people."  
 _"True, Cupcake."_ Jack said, placing a hand on Rhys shoulder, despite knowing that it would do nothing and he couldn't feel it.

That was when Rhys looked in the rear view mirror and saw it, Jack was giving Rhys the most genuine and kind smile that he had ever seen from the older man. He had to admit to himself he really started to grow a liking for Jack despite all of his craziness before and even some now.

Sure he had always liked Jack, sometimes to an unhealthy level of obsession with collecting his merchandise but this was different, looking at his smile he knew that he liked Jack, that he was going to help him and they were, at the very least, friends now and with that he returned the smile with a genuine one of his own.


	6. Chapter 6

Rhys couldn't handle driving for as long as he was without taking a break and when he tried to tell Vaughn to drive the man kept his eyes open for a second before mumbling that he was to tired and a hologram can't exactly drive a car so Jack was out of the picture which led Rhys to stopping at a very shady looking hotel in the middle of Pandora sneaking Jacks dead body into the hotel room so no one noticed it in the car.

Despite being shady there were some ups to the hotel, one being that it had two bedrooms so Rhys and Vaughn didn't have to share a room, which Rhys was grateful for. As much as he loved his friend, his friend had a habit of snoring so loud that it kept him up and he needed to get at least some sleep tonight. Another was the free breakfast which was rare on Pandora.

Rhys quickly led his friend to his bed so he could sleep himself, he had found himself realizing just how exhausted he was as he was laying in his bed and about to sleep.

He had forgotten one small thing though.

 _Jack._

The hologram was walking around the room, ranting about how disgusting it was and how it reminded him of his Grandmothers house then he went on about her and how he hated her resulting in an hour of time that he could have been sleeping gone and Jacks rants didn't seem like they would stop anytime soon either. Eventually he groaned and glared at Jack.  
"Jack." He said as his gaze followed the pacing hologram.

" _Haha, but I mean you should have seen it there was blood everywhere Rhysie and I-"_ Jack continued to rant until Rhys cut him off.

"Jack!" He groaned. "I want to sleep, can't you rant about your family tomorrow. I mean, I appreciate the fact you are telling me about it all but still, I need to sleep."  
Jack rolled his eyes but sat down next to Rhys who was laying in the bed.

" _Yeah, yeah. Go on, sleep."_ He grumbled, clearly irritated that his story was interrupted but not making any moves to be angry to Rhys about it, instead he sat there and sulked.

Laying down and turning off the light Rhys laid there for a long moment before opening his mouth.

"You get your body back tomorrow." He said quietly.

" _Yeah, I must say Rhysie you scared me with how much you were pushing this back, I, oh man, I thought you'd just fuck me over, but look at us actually working together."_ Jacks chuckle echoed through Rhys head and the young CEO watched as the elder man relaxed, leaning back in the bed and letting his own eyes close.

"Yeah, I...wouldn't do that." He said quietly before Rhys had turned away from him, seeing the glowing light of the hologram fade leaving him in darkness. Biting his lower lip before closing his eyes Rhys found himself drifting off to sleep.

Rhys was surprised at the fact that he hadn't been woken up by Jack like usual but was woken off by the sound of his echo device going off.

Reaching over he grabbed it and answered it without thinking only to hear an all to familiar voice screaming at him.

"W-Woah, Fi. Please calm down." He said into the echo, having to turn her on speaker so he could actually hear after this.

"Calm down?! Where the hell are you Rhys?! We find that once the power comes on you are missing along with Vaughn and no one know where you are!" She yelled into the phone again, which made him even more grateful that he had put it on speaker.

"Woah, she sounds pissed off." Jack said, flickering in front of him.

"Shut up and stop stating the obvious!" He yelled, aiming it towards Jack but instead he heard Fiona yell more into the phone, sighing he rubbed his head and laid back on the bed, listening to her yelling.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Vaughn asked walking into the room. The mans brown hair messily falling into his face.

"Fiona." Rhys said, not looking up at him and just listening to her long rant about how he's the CEO and how much of an asshole he was, asking where the hell he was, and why he didn't tell anyone where he was going. Once she realized Vaughn was there with him it only got worse and she started to yell at the pair together causing them both to sigh and just listen, knowing hanging up would make matters worse at the moment.

Looking out the window his eye caught sight of a person getting mugged, it was normal here on Pandora but Rhys still hadn't gotten over how crazy it was to see. The planet was more self destructive them any Rhys had visited before and yet he had grown a love for it in some ways and he would never trade Atlas for anything now, looking over he saw Jack who was glaring at the man who had just mugged the other. A slight smile forming on Rhys lips as he watched the older man.

Jack had turned and caught him looking at him and had cocked a brow as the pair met eye contact. "Whatya lookin' at Kiddo?" He asked.

"Huh? Oh, nothing." He shook his head, looking away and grabbing his clothes. "Okay, I'm taking a shower." He said, mainly to Vaughn and Fiona to get her to shut up before he hung up and watched Vaughn give him a thumbs up.

"I'll go get us some breakfast." Vaughn said, sliding on his own pants over his boxers and a shirt before leaving.

Turning on the shower the Cybernetic man stripped out of his boxers and climbed into shower, closing his eyes as the hot water hit his skin. He ran his flesh fingers through his hair, slicking it back before he heard a slight chuckle, his eyes flying open immediately to see Jack standing in front of him, arms folded across his chest.

Rhys face grew red before he reached over to grab his towel, turning the shower off and wrapping it around his waist. "J-Jack?! W-What are you doing in here?!" He stumbled back out of the shower, almost falling in the process but catching himself at last minute.

"Careful, kiddo. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself." He said, watching Rhys with a sly grin on his face.

"I am fine, I thought I said I was taking a shower why did you come in and-"  
"Shush." Jack said, stepping towards Rhys and making eye contact with him. "So, kiddo. Wanna tell me the truth about what you were looking at?"

"I wasn't...looking at anything." Rhys breathed, his face growing red as he held tightly onto the towel with his flesh hand.

That answer didn't seem to satisfy Jack as he rolled his eyes before meeting Rhys and winking at him. _"If you tell me the truth I may reward you for it later when I have my body."_ He commented, his voice smooth and calm which only made Rhys face grow warm as his cheeks were a bright red. He had held a tight grip on his towel that was around his waist, feeling the warmth spreading to his lower half. Rhys held his breath, trying to stay as calm as possible but around Jack that was near impossible, he had to admit he may have seemed like the worlds biggest asshole but he was also the hottest one too.  
"Oh come on, Cupcake. Tell me." Jack said, inching closer and whispering into ear.

"Y-You." Rhys managed to stutter out.  
"Me what?" He questioned.

"I...I was looking at you." He mumbled under his breath before jolting back at Jacks sudden laughter.

Jack kept laughing for a while before turning away from Rhys towards the bathroom door.

"Yeah, I knew that, just wanted to hear you say it. You are so gullible, Princess. I'm just messin' with ya, that face though, it lit up like Christmas lights." He looked back at Rhys for a moment, eyeing him up and down before speaking again. "Also you may wanna take care of that." He said pointing towards the towel before leaving Rhys alone again, Rhys face and body red from how flustered he was.

Yeah, Jack definitely was the worlds biggest asshole.


	7. Chapter 7

Rhys awkwardly fiddled with his jacket as Vaughn drove.

They had tried to leave over an hour ago, but they gotten stopped so many times along the way by people asking questions. Most people would ask what they were carrying, and not being able to say the truth they both came up with ridiculous lies. The people seemed to either buy it or not care enough to risk their lives trying to stop them, this was Pandora and if you messed with the wrong person you were pretty much digging your own grave. So finally after 30 minutes they had gotten to their car and had been able to continue their long drive again.

Now Rhys sat in the passengers side as Vaughn drove, he would watch as the Skags ran alongside the car but eventually they would slow down, unable to keep up with the vehicle. He would also notice the few times where Vaughn had almost hit a few of them but would swerve out of the way, he would make small comments to himself after about the creatures, talking about their first time on Pandora Rhys hitting one and not wanting to repeat that action.

After a while of Driving in silence, as Rhys had nothing to say and was deep in his own thoughts of what had happened earlier, Vaughn glanced over to see that Rhys was silently looking out at the desert that surrounded them.

"Okay, what's up Bro? You are so quiet and that's not like you." Vaughn asked, his face was filled with concern as Rhys turned to face him.

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing." Rhys responded, his eyes sneaking a glance at the smirking Jack in the backseat.

Rhys was flustered over everything that happened earlier that morning, but he wasn't about to tell Vaughn what had happened with Jack. Instead he pointed to a small beat up restaurant alongside the road as they reached an old small town that Rhys hadn't stopped at before.

"Hey, why don't we grab a bite to eat. You have been driving for a bit now and It's almost lunch time anyway." Rhys said, trying to distract Vaughn from the subject for at least a little while. Gladly this seemed to work as he took his suggestion and pulled aside, parking the car and jumping out.

" _What's wrong, Cupcake? You look a bit flustered?"_ Jack teased, a big grin twisted onto his face that Rhys didn't even have to turn around to see.

The brunette boy rolled his eyes and followed Vaughn in, ignoring Jack for the time being. The sooner he got him to his body the better, especially with the Risk of him finding out about...

Rhys thoughts were cut off by his best friends voice.  
"Oh man, Jacks knowledge may actually help us with the company. I mean he did run Hyperion fairly well." Vaughn said suddenly as they sat at their table for a moment.

"Hopefully." Rhys muttered under his breath, watching Jacks face of amusement.

" _Hopefully? Cupcake, I am the best at everything I do. Wait till you see it all your little Atlas will be massive!"_ He laughed, holding his arm out to gesture. With this he had gotten too excited and taken control of Rhys arm, holding his hands up after as he saw Rhys glared at him. _"Accident, kiddo. Man don't kill me. Oh wait filthy_ _bandits beat you to that."_ His voice had an annoyed tone as he spoke.

Rhys couldn't respond as the waitress had made her way over to the pair to take their order and afterward he would listen to the chatter of his best friend. He would also catch a few comments here and there from Jack that he wanted to ignore but it was hard since he was loud and right beside him.

Vaughn seemed to notice that something was wrong and he wasn't responding like he normally had.

"What is really going on, Rhys? You are acting weird." The shorter man asked, stopping in the middle of his endless chatter, his expression turning from excited to worried.

The taller man gave him a weak smile as he tapped his cybernetic fingers on the beat up old table that was covered by an old blue tablecloth. He had glanced around at his surroundings, mostly to see who was around them and luckily there only seemed to be about 4 people in the diner besides the staff and them. He brought his voice down to a low whisper as he spoke just in case. "I guess I'm just anxious for the entire Jack body thing. I mean if we get caught you know how many people would want us dead? People hated Jack on this planet and we have his body in our car and are planning to bring him back to life. Plus we don't know what's even going to happen and if it will work the way it is suppose to."  
Luckily Jack didn't seem to hear this as he was distracted, watching the waitress rush around, trying to get their order ready. Rhys had followed his gaze until he was brought back by a familiar ring tone that startled him and made him look down. He answered the call immediately, not looking to see who it was and was thankful when it wasn't Fiona to rip him apart again, asking where they were and what they were doing.

"Rhys." A womans gentle voice came through, Rhys stood quickly, recognizing it. He walked outside without a single word to the others and shook his head as he ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. He didn't care about that though, not now at least.

"Why are you calling me? Actually, no how did you even get this number?" He questioned, making sure no one followed him.

"It was not hard, Rhys. I know all of the old Hyperion employee phone numbers. But that is unimportant, how is it going?" She questioned, her voice sounding more stern.

"I think good so far, we are almost there. He doesn't seem to realize anything yet. But..I must admit this feels..wrong to lie to him like this." Rhys said, glancing around yet again to make sure no one was listening.

"It's for the best. Like I said Rhys when you upload him into the body you need to press the red button. If you press the blue one our plan won't work and he will just be himself." She said, her voice sounding sad for a slight second before she firmly spoke again. "Do it, Rhys. This will be more beneficial for us and him in the end."

"I guess your right. Anyway, I should probably go back now. I will contact you when it is over." Rhys said, hanging up and turning to see Jack standing behind him. He almost dropped his phone but caught it at last minute before putting it in his pocket and looking over at Jack. "W-Woah. What are you- How long were you there?" He stuttered, voice shaking as he spoke.  
 _"You were on the phone for a bit. I only just now got here._ _Why you so jumpy, Pumpkin?"_ Jack asked a slight grin on his face, looking around them before his eyes met the younger mans again.

"Stop teasing me, Jack." He _grumbled_ , walking back in to see the food was at the table now, he simply started eating it and didn't say another word until he was done.

After paying the check he grabbed the car keys from Vaughn who looked surprised at this, considering the taller man drove for hours the day prior.

"We're almost there, I will drive the remaining time since I know the way to where we are going." Rhys explained, seeing his friend nod and his confused expression fade.

Vaughn happily obliged and hopped into the passengers side, fiddling with the radio station, he found a song that he knew and liked and started to hum with it after a long time of deciding.

"So how exactly did you find out about this place?" Vaughn asked after the song ended, turning the radio down a bit so they could talk.

"Oh ya know, heard rumors of the place and decided to check it out. Gotta get a leg up on any competition." Rhys responded, his voice sounded nervous as he spoke, seeing the blue glow from behind him and knowing full well that Jack had been sitting back there. He glanced into the rear view mirror to see the hologram and saw his lips curled into a thin line, eyes narrowed but he didn't look angry at the moment which was good, Rhys had realized he must have been concentrating on something. So he had tapped his fingers onto the steering wheel taking a deep breath and tried to find the words he wanted to. In the end he sighed and settled with something simple. "What are you going to do first when you get your body, Jack?"

Jacks attention seemed to be jerked out of the deep thought he was in and towards Rhys, a grin twisting onto his face. _"Why do you wanna know? Wanna continue what happened in the bathroom?"_

The younger mans face lit up and he grumbled a bit. "I'm not falling for whatever your saying again, Jack."

"What did he say?" Vaughn asked making Rhys jolt, almost forgetting his best friend was still there as Jack had all of his attention for the moment.

"N-Nothing!" Rhys quickly defended, hearing Jack say _'smooth'_ behind him with a snicker as he tried calming himself more. "He made up some crazy answer that wasn't serious at all. I don't know if he's going to..." His words trailed when he heard Jacks higher pitched snicker grow to a deep chortle in the backseat before he leaned back and stared blankly at nothing as if he were thinking about something.

It wasn't for a few minutes when Jack nodded and spoke in an oddly calm voice as all laughter had ended minutes prior. _"I think I'd like to relax for once in my life. I've always been stuck in this chaos and for once I'd love to just relax. I miss sleeping, and eating and well living like a normal functioning human rather then being stuck in this annoying body where I have none of that. After then I can be the hero and all but first it's time to relax."_

"Well, you can do all of those when we get back to Atlas after this." Rhys said, slowing the car and pointing to a large building that belonged to Hyperion when it was still running.

" _Ah yes, I remember this now. It was one of our Pandora buildings that I built when I first became CEO and Nakayama and I created my AI. I remember all the technology inside of here and this should be fairly easy. If I remember correct you just press a button and I am myself in a body again. Oh but make sure you press the blue button."_ He commented, his voice stern as he spoke.

Rhys nodded and slid out of the car, glancing around.  
"No bandits, lets do this quick before any show up and we have to deal with them." Rhys said, quickly rushing to open the backdoor where Vaughn had joined him at, both pulling Jacks body out of the car and towards the building. "Ughh, Jack why are you so heavy?!" Rhys groaned as they dragged his body towards the building slowly.  
 _"Hey, Hey! Careful with my body, Babe. I need that in a few minutes."_ Jack said, his voice filled with excitement as he said the last part. Despite only being blue he could see the way his eyes lit up and brightened which made Rhys think back to his phone call earlier.

 _'You need to press the red button. If you press the blue one our plan won't work.'_ The words stuck in his mind as he thought deeply about what he was doing and what was right or wrong. Getting inside he saw the small chamber along with where he uploaded Jack into the computers before into the body.

The place was definitely Hyperion as the yellow logo stuck out clearly to Rhys along with the yellow on the walls as he glanced around.

After they sat him down Vaughn had been the one to hook him up to Rhys exact orders. As he was doing so Rhys had stepped back and turned towards Jack, asking if he was ready.

Jack had partially snapped, letting out a deep growl, asking him to go on and do it already so here Rhys was uploading him from his port to the computer.

"You ready Vaughn?" The lanky man asked, turning to look at him.

His friend gave him a thumbs up when he was ready on his side and Rhys nodded before turning his gaze to the giant computer screen in front of him where Jack flickered onto.

"Okay, lets do this." Rhys said, his Flesh hand hovering over the red button where Jack couldn't see it, ready to press it, he had accepted what he needed to do and was ready to go through with the plan he had set before.

" _Rhysie, I owe you big for this."_ Jacks words cut Rhys out of his thoughts turning his attention fully to him. He was smiling at Rhys, a genuine smile that he rarely gave to anyone and yet here he was doing it again. Despite all of this though it wasn't until the next words spilled out of his mouth when Rhys eyes had widened in shock. _"So...Thank you, Rhys. I knew I could trust you."_

The lack of nicknames, the way he spoke. Handsome Jack trusted no one and yet here he was saying this.

Rhys let his lip turn upwards as he moved his hand and pressed the blue button.  
"See you soon Jack." Was all he could spit out, before the sound of slow beeps became more steady from the monitor next to Jacks body.


	8. Chapter 8

Vaughn nervously tapped his foot as he stared over at Rhys who was making his way towards him with slow steps.

"So, what now?" Vaughn questioned.

The taller man approached the machine and looked down at Jacks body. "We wait for him to wake up." Rhys commented, bringing his flesh hand up to his mouth and nervously chewing on his nails, thinking about what he had done.

Vaughn seemed to notice this and planted a hand on his shoulder, his lips opened to speak but closed quickly and his eyes had widened.

"Uhh, Rhys.." Stepping back the short man tripped over his feet and pointed behind Rhys, his face filled with fear.

"What's wrong, Vaug-oooh shit!" Rhys looked behind him to now see the Torks that littered the place, making their way towards the room they were in. He quickly ran over to the door and slammed it shut, stepping back and seeing them through the glass windows. A few jumped towards it and tried getting in but luckily it seemed like the windows were sturdy enough to contain the creatures on the other side.

"Ugh, I hated Torks on Helios." Vaughn complained, backing up into a wall and letting himself relax there on the floor. "What weapons do we have?"  
"With us at the moment we have a stun baton, a knife a pistol and a sniper rifle, everything else is in the car." Rhys commented, pulling the larger gun off his back and leaning it against the wall by Vaughn before taking the others out of his Jacket to show them to him. Sitting next to him he glanced over at Jacks body.

Jack hadn't gotten up yet and Rhys had remembered the conversation he had a while back about after he is in the body.

"It can take up to 2 hours for him to wake up after he is inserted into the body so we just need to wait this out." Rhys said to Vaughn as he let himself relax for a slight moment.

"Ugh, okay, so what are we going to do about them in the meantime?" Vaughn questioned, gesturing towards the Torks that were still trying to break in.  
"When Jack wakes up we can devise a distraction so we can get out. For now we should relax. Maybe look around the room for anything useful." Rhys retorted, pushing himself up yet again and looking behind his shoulder at the Torks. "The glass is sturdy enough that we should be fine for a little while."

"Okay, yeah. But let me have that knife. It's the only weapon I am really super comfortable with and I prefer to not be totally defenseless if something goes bad."

Rhys handed it over and kept the two guns leaning against the wall closest to Jack while he kept the stun baton which was his own favorite weapon for himself. Walking over he started searching the one side of the room, searching through boxes.

After 20 minutes they had searched the large room fully and had found more ammo, some Insta Health Vials, and a few grenades which they kept in mind for the Torks and placed all in a simple box to take with.  
"Hey Rhys. I vote we go to the Purple Skag after this is all over. Go get some drinks. I feel like I will need a lot of them." Vaughn said, fiddling with the knife as they sat yet again. They had been sitting there for a while simply making small talk.

"Yeah, I guess a drink wouldn't hurt anyone. Plus I will probably need one after everything that's going on." He said, hearing a buzzing and glancing down at it to see his messages. Scrolling down he half read through a few business messages and then glanced at the recent ones, scared to open them.

He read the ones from Fiona first.

 _9:45 am_

 _Rhys! Where the hell are you?! If you aren't back soon we are sending someone after you. The CEO can't be missing for this long._

 _10:55 am_

 _We are all worried about you and Vaughn Sasha has even been questioning where you are and I don't know what to do here._

 _2:15 pm_

 _That's it. I am getting Gortys and Loader Bot to track you._

The last message was from a minute ago.

 _Why are you at a Hyperion Base, Rhys?_

"Shit she is maad." Vaughn said, reading the messages over Rhys shoulder.

"Yeah, she's preetty mad." Rhys mumbled in response, he shot her a quick message back saying.

 _'I'll be back soon, Fi. Explain Later. Sorry._

After he started scrolling to see another new message he received from an unknown number. Hesitating he opened it against his better judgment and read the simple text.

 _Is it done?_

Shit.

"Who's that?" Vaughn questioned causing Rhys to almost drop his phone as he jumped in surprise.  
"Oh uhh, just a business partner of ours, no one to really worry about. They were messaging me about a trade earlier making sure things are done." He said, clearly lying but luckily Vaughn didn't seem to want to push the subject further at the moment.

The pair sat there, glancing over the remaining business messages together, Rhys ignoring the message from _her_. He didn't know how to tell her anyway, she clearly hated Jack.

"So it looks like right away I'll have a meeting when we get back with Maliwan. They want to sell us some weapons again so I want you to check our financial situation when we get back and make sure we can afford to even do th-Ahh!"

They both jumped, jerking their heads up when they heard a gun shot go off abruptly, glancing over they saw the dead Tork stuck in the broken door that they were sure the Tork probably broke. Their eyes flickered over to the man who stood by it with the same pistol Rhys had brought in his hand. He turned and grinned to them, a smug look on his face.

"You two really don't pay attention do ya cupcake? I mean the Torks snuck right up on ya and if it weren't for me being the hero I am you two would be dead." His voice was smooth as he spoke, his mismatched eyes meeting Rhys own.

Rhys could feel his face heating up and grumbled. "Thanks I guess. You could have given us a warning before you shot it though, Jack. I didn't even know you were up yet."

"Of course you didn't notice, Rhysie. I just told ya that, pay attention next time." He laughed.

There it was, that obnoxious attitude that made Rhys question if he made the right choice. The man slowly strutted closer to the door, gun in his hand as he did so. "Come on we don't have all day! Let's get our asses out of this facility!"

Rhys sighed and got up. "Hey, remember we are working together not you bossing me around, Jack."

"Yeah, yeah. But seriously we need to get our asses out of here now I don't want to have to deal with more of these nasty bugs. I hated them being on our station on Helios in the first place, R&D always said they were so valuable for research and I let them do as they pleased then just because it cost nothing, but those little fuckers use to get out all the time and-" Jack started to ramble about the Torks.  
"Jack seriously, shut up!" Rhys retorted, a headache growing just by being around the man for a short period of time again. To think that this talkative asshole use to be his role model was hard to even think about.

Jack shot Rhys a glare at that but quickly continued on his way out of the building, shooting the different Torks as he went. Rhys had stayed close to him because he was definitely not as experienced with fighting. It wasn't his thing anyway, he was more into the simple talking his way out of issues or avoiding them altogether if he could. Or cases like this where someone else could fight whatever it was and he didn't have to.

He heard Vaughn shuffle close behind with the stuff that Rhys hadn't grabbed, staying close to them as well.

"Shit, anything useful in that box of yours back there, Shorty. There are more Torks then I would like to deal with with a simple gun." Jack grumbled, pushing past Rhys and searching through the box that Vaughn had, grinning wildly when he found the grenades, pulling one out he laughed as he tossed it into a crowded spot, watching them blow up. He grabbed one more Grenade as he pushed forward again.

He hadn't used the second until they reached outside which was equally as infested with the nasty creatures.

Moving towards the car Jack held his hand up. "Give me the keys. I will drive." He said firmly.

Neither men protested to this and gave the keys over, rushing in the car quickly.

Vaughn had fallen asleep halfway through the drive back, sitting in the backseat, because he had said to Rhys quietly earlier that he didn't want to be THAT close to Jack as the man made him nervous as hell.

Jack himself had been quiet, which was unusual for him, until Vaughn had fallen asleep.

Glancing over to Rhys he cleared his throat, turning down a small road. "Hey kid, you hungry cause I am starving."

"Yeah, I guess I could eat." The Cybernetic man retorted, seeing Jack had already started to pull up to an empty looking restaurant. Jack had stopped by the door and was about to turn off the car to get out before Rhys quickly stopped him.

"They won't react well if they see you on Pandora yet. Let me go order us food and there is a small little lake nearby where we can go eat."

Jack thought about it before nodding, leaning back and watching as Rhys had left, a slight smile on his face before glancing back at the short one in the backseat, snoring away. It was quite annoying and he had no idea how Rhys dealt with it where he wanted to put a pillow over the mans face. The only reason he hadn't actually strangled the shorty was because of the kid and their deal.

A few minutes later Rhys walked back out with two bags of food. "The lake is over to the left here. Just drive for about a mile. You can't miss it."

"Got it Pumpkin." Jack said, in the meantime he decided he was to starving to wait and reached in a bag and throwing a few fries in his mouth, driving where Rhys had told him to go.

As they got there they let Vaughn sleep and the pair sat on the dock. Rhys taking his shoes and socks off to let his feet rest in the lake. Normally he'd be worried about what creatures would be in the lake but he had remembered visiting this lake a few times over the course of him being on Pandora and it was clearly safe as he had swam in it with his friends even. Jack seemed to be content with sitting cross legged and eating away.

"Damn, this isn't half bad." The larger man commented, staring straight off into the small lake.

"Yeah, it's better then the taste of a lot of Pandoran foods. I will admit food on Helios was the best and I miss it sometimes." Rhys chuckled, reaching over to grab his drink, taking a large sip.

"Haha, oh man you know nothing yet Pumpkin. You have only been on Pandora for what 4 years? Try 16 years of it." He laughed, leaning back and resting on his hands as he took a break from eating.

Rhys turned to look at him, tilting his head. "Did you live on Pandora for 16 years at some point?" He questioned.

"Yes I did, Rhysie boy. Born and raised on this scum planet." The older man said, sighing before he continued. "My old man died when I was young, mother handed me over to my piece of shit Grandmother until I couldn't stand her and got out of here. I got an internship at Hyperion when I was 16 and worked my way up the company and you saw I was CEO before I was murdered. So I guess I started off small and with nothing."

"Wow, they never said stuff like that about you. Ya know even your 'big fans' always just knew the stuff that Handsome Jack did. Not the Pandoran Jack before you became CEO." Rhys said, surprised himself to be finding out these things about Jack.

"Yeah, well no one is suppose to know so keep your mouth shut. I am trusting you can do that, right?" Jack said, his voice stern as he spoke.

Rhys chuckled and nodded, punching Jack gently on the shoulder, smiling. "Your secret is safe with me."

Jack laughed with him, making eye contact with the boy he slowly leaned towards him, a faint smile across his face that Rhys could see when he was close enough. Rhys could feel his face heating up slightly at the small distance between the pair.

"Uhnn, are we there?" They heard Vaughn say from in the car.

Jack let a deep growl escape his lips, jerking back away from Rhys and turning to glare at the car. "No dumbass, do you live on a lake?! No? No. Then we are not there! So either go back to sleep and keep snoring away annoying us with it or get your ass out here and eat with us!" He yelled to the car.

Rhys lost it and burst into laughter at Jacks sudden outburst and as he watched Vaughn slowly step out of the car, eyes filled with horror as if he had been terrified that he just pissed off Jack.

Rhys knew no matter what he'd say Vaughn was terrified of Jack. As he got closer he moved to Rhys right side where it was empty and pushed Rhys over a little toward Jack before holding his hand out.. "I was promised food if I left the car." He said.

Jack chuckled, pointing towards the lake. "There is a lake, go catch yourself some nice fish, if I remember you were weirdly buff enough to do it." He teased, earning a grumble from Vaughn before Rhys handed over some food, still laughing a bit.

The three had sat there, relaxed for a long moment, only making small talk now before Rhys had been the one to stand up and interrupt it, throwing his socks and shoes back on. "Come on, we should get back to Atlas soon before Fiona sends out a group and kills us all. Though..she may try and go after you when she sees you, Jack. Just a small warning."

"Miss Fancy pants doesn't scare me, Rhys. Let's go. I am dying to get back and sleep in a real bed." Jack said, jumping up and getting in the car.

Within ten minutes of driving Vaughn was asleep again, but Rhys didn't have that luxury.

His thoughts raced as he thought about what he was going to tell everyone about Jack and thinking of how they were going to react.


	9. Chapter 9

Rhys had taken over driving again as they got near Atlas, chatting with Jack the entire time as Vaughn happily slept in the back again.

The only time there was silence was when they were driving towards the rear entrance. Rhys, reaching back, smacked his best friend with his Cybernetic limb.

"Huh?! I-I'm up, what do you want?" He jolted up in his seat, glancing at Rhys and then Jack who was snickering to himself.

"We are here, Vaughn." He said, driving in and parking the car.

"Rhys, you guys are back." Yvette said, luckily being the only one there. Holding her hands out she took the keys from him as he exited the car.

"How bad have things been here?" He questioned, walking past her to sit some of the weapons and extra items they had found down.

She sighed. "Hard, Rhys. Since you left everyone's been on my ass, asking about where you and Vaughn were."  
"Well, I owe you big for not telling anyone." He said, turning to look behind her where Jack and Vaughn were now out of the car. Jack was glancing at some weapons.  
"Yes you do Rhys." She said, crossing her arms and grinning. "How many meals do I get again?"

"I said I'd buy you lunch for a week, and Vaughns going out to the Purple Skag tonight so why don't you go out and enjoy yourself, get as many drinks as you want there, on my tab of course." He said, turning and pointing to Vaughn to change the subject. "Get me those numbers as soon as you can. I am going to change and go to this meeting with Maliwan. Jack come with me so we can head back to my place." He said, leaving the room. He luckily knew his way around his company better then anyone else so he could use shortcuts and easily avoid people to get to his room. Occasionally he would glance behind him to make sure Jack was still there. When they were finally safe tucked into the elevator Rhys held his chrome arm out, letting a screen appear in front of it he started pressing buttons. "What size pants do you wear?" He asked.  
"Well Rhysie why don't you find out yourself." Jack teased, punching his flesh arm lightly, receiving a glare from the other man who simply held up the screen for him to see.

"I am having them deliver more clothes to my apartment for you. If you aren't going to tell me then order them yourself but you can't just wear the same clothes everyday and my clothes won't fit you, I can tell that for sure." He commented, waiting slowly for the elevator to get to his floor on the highest level. He watched Jack press buttons to order his close before Rhys looked down and brought up a new screen, ordering other stuff for the larger man.

"Currently there is no empty apartment for you so you are going to have to deal with staying in my guest room for a while." Rhys said, a bit irritated that there was nothing for the man besides his own place.

Seeing Jacks face he held a hand up stopping the man from making another crazy joke. As he did that he heard the elevator ding on his floor, turning his attention towards the floor in front of him he started walking forward a few steps before he unlocked the door, pushing Jack in ahead of him before he entered himself, shutting it tight behind the pair.

Rhys place wasn't massive but it wasn't by any standards small. He had 3 bedrooms, two guest rooms and his own, two bathrooms, a decent size kitchen which he rarely used anyway because he was more interested in the food at the food court, plus he wasn't the best cook. He also had a large TV, a bunch of games and systems to play them on and a fairly large couch for when friends came over.

"So this is what you made home eh? Not the largest but I can make do." Jack said interrupting his thoughts as he walked around the house, opening things.

"There are two guest rooms, you choose which one you wanna stay in. There they are. I need to change for my meeting." The smaller man said, walking into his own bedroom.

When Rhys was dressed he observed himself in the mirror by his dresser, fixing his hair up a bit before walking out again, seeing Jack laying out on his couch, watching TV.

"Okay Jack I am heading out for a few hours for a meeting. I will be back after that. What would you like to eat tonight?" He questioned trying to hold back a yawn already.

"I really don't care." The large man commented, paying more attention to the TV then anything.

"Okay well if you want anything just call in, don't leave the house yet and if you do order something have them leave it outside the door. Or you can always call Vaughn to get you something if he isn't busy. His numbers on the fridge and here's mine." Rhys said, waving goodbye before heading out.

Meetings were Rhys least favorite part of the job. He hated being stuck listening to a bunch of idiots who were only sucking up to him to get something. This one was like most others, he felt himself struggling to stay awake halfway through their meeting and after they told him their demands vs what he would receive he decided it wasn't worth it and left abruptly, simply stating he wasn't interested.

Walking down the hall towards the elevator he decided he would simply order some pizza tonight as he didn't want to leave Jack alone for too long. The man was like a kid and if you left him alone for too long he'd probably burn down Rhys entire apartment without remorse for doing so.

Stepping into the elevator he pressed the button to his floor, not paying any mind to the people around him he leaned back against the wall and yawned, his would be the last stop so he relaxed a bit, closing his eyes and hearing the occasional ding as they arrived on different floors.

"Rhys." A Familiar stern woman's voice said suddenly, just as he thought he was alone, causing him to panic internally. Opening his eyes he flashed a forced smile to the woman standing in front of him.

"Hey Fiona, what's up?" He asked, scratching the back of his head.

Her eyes narrowed and she kept a scowl on her face. Reaching over though she pulled him into a hug. "What were you doing alone? It's dangerous for the Atlas CEO to go out alone, Rhys?" She scolded, hugging him tighter.

She wasn't mad. She was worried?

Pulling away he punched her gently on the arm. "Hey, don't worry Fiona I had Vaughn with me and it wasn't far. Besides you make it sound like I am helpless."

"Well.." She teased, before laughing a bit and smiling, her features softening up and showing the friendly Fiona he was use to now.  
They stood in the elevator for a while, grateful everyone got off early that they could talk Rhys took a deep breath and prepared himself to tell her. He was cut off by her though.

"Hey Rhys, I heard everyone's going out drinking tonight, you going?" She questioned, looking over at him.

"Huh? Oh, yeah...no I don't think I'll make it again. But..make sure that the drinks are on me for you and the others." He smiled, watching as the elevator doors opened again on her stop. She slowly started making her way out of the elevator before turning and looking at him.

"Well, maybe I'll go out and buy ya a drink and bring one back for you later." She said, waving goodbye as the doors shut and it started moving again.

He sighed, knowing he just lost a big opportunity to tell her about Jack.

Walking into the apartment he heard the TV still going in the living room, sounding like one of his games this time, which he wouldn't have doubted. He ignored it for a moment and opened his phone, calling for his normal Pizza order.

After it was done and the woman had his order he sat his phone down on the kitchen counter beside him and walked towards the sound of his game and now angry shouting. The Second Jack realized he was there he quieted himself and smiled.

"Hey there kitten." Jack said, laying across his couch with a blanket over him and game controller in his hand.

The man looked as comfortable as ever, playing one of Rhys first person shooter games. As Rhys got closer to him, Jack sat up and patted the spot next to him.

Turning to look at Jack, about to sit down, he realized he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"J-Jack, why are you not wearing a shirt?" He stuttered, his face turning red as he caught himself looking at the mans toned body.

"What's wrong, Pumpkin? If we are living together then we might as well get comfortable with each other." He stated with a shrug.

"Please, Pleaase tell me you are at least wearing pants." He said, covering his face with his cybernetic hand. Jack laughed loudly and moved the blanket down showing that he was wearing a pair of sweatpants.

"Now if you are done complaining, sit down and join me. I could use your help on my team." He cheered, wrapping an arm around Rhys and pulling him close, causing Rhys to tumble onto the couch.

Knowing it was useless to argue he reached over to the side table and grabbed a controller, a small smile forming on his face.

"So why did you never tell anyone about living on Pandora again?" Rhys questioned as the pair sat down eating Pizza.

"Just didn't want them to know I was from this filthy planet. People admire you even more if you look like you've always been rich and from a nice planet like Eden 5. That's where you were raised correct?" Jack responded, glancing over at Rhys who took a bite of pizza and replied with a nod.

The pair had decided to talk as they ate and it was oddly relaxing to Jack. Yes he would prefer to have been killing bandits but hanging out with Rhys wasn't as bad as he though at first.

"Ya know Rhysie I have a question for you." He started, crossing his arms he continued. "I betrayed you, lied to you, attempted to kill you and your friends. Yet you still brought me back. I know you keep saying things like it was to help you run Atlas but there seems to be more to it then that. So Pumpkin what's the truth."

Rhys hesitated, unsure if he should tell Jack the real truth. After a moment he shrugged. "It's nothin' really. I guess I just enjoy you as a partner. And I mean you were dead so I understand why you acted that way. I would be a bit on edge too if I found out I was murdered by Vaul-..Bandits. Also I see you as a friend now so that adds to it."

Jack looked over at Rhys, his face unreadable to the younger man as he sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually he let out a hearty laugh, causing Rhys to jolt back. "You are something else kid."

The brunette boy shrugged, leaning back into the couch and only looking over to the man again when he had stopped laughing.

The moment their eyes met the cybernetic man felt his pants tighten and his face heat up at the way Jack was looking at him. The Atlas man caught the look of Hunger in Jacks eyes. Feeling his breathing stop for a moment he parted his lips to say something but nothing came out.

"I like you kid." Jack was the one to break the silence.

After he said that Rhys simply waited for him to add more to that to tease the boy, but he hadn't spoken again. Instead Rhys watched as the older man closed his eyes, took a deep breath and leaned in to press a small kiss to his lips.

 _Holy Shit._ Rhys thought, his mind jumping around to a million questions he had but this wasn't time for them.

"Is this okay?" Jack asked, his voice quiet as he pulled away for a moment. The boy had never heard him speak this quiet and had definitely never seen him ask before doing something.

"Shut up and keep kissing me." Rhys chuckled in response, the words spilling out of his mouth quickly. This seemed to get Jack back to his old self as his lips curled into a smug grin.

"Feisty kitten. That's one thing I like about you." He growled softly before he leaned back towards Rhys again.


	10. Chapter 10

Rhys laid under Jack as the older man brushed his teeth over the younger mans neck, occasionally biting down to leave marks on the CEOs Neck.

"Oh kitten." Jack Purred into his ear, running his hands over his clothes to slowly remove the layers until he was finally down to the last layer.

"J-Jack." Rhys stuttered after a while of the pair kissing. Jack was halfway down his shirt, three buttons left when Rhys spoke.

Looking down at the young mans blushing face he found himself smirking. "Yes, Rhysie?"

Rhys found it hard to speak as he looked at the man on top of him, his mouth going dry as his eyes gazed over the mans fit body. As he finally found himself gathering his thoughts he heard a knock at the door.

"Fucking...who the hell is it now?!" Jack growled, rolling off of Rhys to let him get up, much to his annoyance.

When they knocked again Rhys jumped to his feet and fixed his hair, groaning. "I'm coming!" He said, fixing himself a little so it didn't look like he had just been making out with someone before swinging the door open to see Fiona, Sasha and Vaughn all standing there. Sasha holding a bottle out towards him and giggling.

"Fi thinks that you need this!" She said, loudly and obviously very drunk at that moment.

"Oh uhh, thank you guys. I'd let you in but I am quite busy right now." He said, watching as the sisters rolled their eyes and forced their way into his apartment.

When he looked at Vaughn the short man gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry bro. I tried to stop them but they said you were probably just working on stuff and needed a break. I couldn't tell them the truth." He said quietly as he watched the sisters in the kitchen, unable to see Jack yet.

"Well distract them enough to let me get Jack into his room or something." He grumbled, shutting the door and making his way towards the older man who was sitting arms crossed on the couch.

"They are loud." He grumbled when Rhys got close enough.

"Yeah well they are in the house and you need to hide. Like now." Rhys whispered, his eyes kept looking behind him to make sure Vaughn was still keeping them distracted.

Jack rolled his eyes as he pushed himself to his feet and started walking down the hall at a slow pace, looking annoyed.

"Come on, can't you move a little faster." The younger brunette boy groaned, pushing Jack only to have the man turn and glare at him before he willingly walked down the hall out of sight

"Rhys!" Sasha yelled from the kitchen, catching his attention.

"Y-Yeah? What is it Sash?" He questioned, making his way towards her.

Sasha was holding a bottle of beer. And after a long moment of her taking a 'sip' of it she held her phone up. "August is stuck workin' on some stuff after work today. Can I hang out here for a bit until he gets off?"

Rhys had tried to think of a way to protest but instead found that he had no real excuses for the sisters without having them totally freak out so the group ended up staying for a few hours as the CEO got more exhausted with dealing with them when they were drunk.

"Vaughn, can you keep an eye on these two and make sure they don't get into too much trouble and destroy my house." Rhys mumbled after dealing with them for a little over an hour. He was getting too tired and had to make sure Jack knew not to come out there till morning because he had no idea when they'd leave.

"Got it. Go deal with the asshole I'll make sure these two get home safe." Vaughn commented, taking a sip of his own drink before watching Rhys walk down the long hallway towards where his room was.

Walking into his room he flicked on the lights and suppressed a scream, staring at the older man who was sitting on his bed in his boxers, flicking through a book from Rhys bookshelf.

"Not much to do here, Pumpkin. I was growing quite bored." Jack commented, sitting the book down and crossing his arms.

"W-Why are you in my bed?! I told you there's two guest rooms for you to chose from!" Rhys commented, fighting a blush as his eyes ran over the mans body again. He couldn't get over the fact that this was the man he was just making out with. "Can you go to your own room now so I can sleep?"

"I like it right here, Cupcake. Why don't you come join me so I'm not bored anymore?" He purred, his eyes watching Rhys as the younger man shyly started to take his clothes off until he was in his boxers like he normally was as he slept, slipping in he laid next to Jack on the bed, trying to keep his distance on the small bed.

Jacks eyes stared at the tattoo on Rhys neck. Running his fingers over the others he grinned and leaned over to kiss his neck, causing Rhys to gasp.

"We...Should...uhh Sleep now." Rhys mumbled under his breath, his face heating up as he quickly turned the lights off and slid under the sheets facing away from Jack.

It went silent for a long moment and Rhys had almost gone to sleep before Jack spoke.

"Hey Pumpkin?" He asked with a quiet voice.

The small man felt his hands slowly wrap around his waist as he spoke and was thankful that he was facing away from Jack as he knew his face was turning a bright shade of red. "Y-Yeah Jack?"  
Jack was silent for an even longer moment before Jack chuckled a little into Rhys shoulder. "Nothing. Let's just sleep." He whispered, not showing any signs of letting Rhys go. But if Rhys was a hundred percent honest with himself, he didn't mind anyway.

 _Beep. Beep. Beep._

Jack grumbled to himself and reached over to slam his hands down on the alarm that had been going off on the nightstand.

After hitting it a few times he realized it wasn't the source of the annoying sound and the bed beside him was empty.

"Rhysie?" He said quietly, slowly rising to his feet and leaving the room. When he left he was still hearing the obnoxious sound but also saw Rhys pacing back and forth, yelling into the phone. He had no idea Rhys could actually yell like that. It was surprising that the kid actually had a backbone when he was leading and wasn't actually that bad at it.

It took the jumpy man a moment till he noticed the older man standing there, faltering slightly with who was talking to before shaking it off. "I want you to catch them _**NOW**_! I'll be down to the cells in ten minutes so they had better be here for interrogation by then! And for christ sake turn off the damn alarms please!"

Once he hung up he turned to look at Jack, pushing the man back into the bedroom. "Get changed, we have business to attend to." He said as the alarms finally stopped.

The larger man started to get dressed into a set of clothes which was similar to the outfit he use to wear on Helios. "So wanna tell me what that was all about before we leave?" He asked, finishing getting dressed and fixing his hair in the mirror Rhys had in his room.

"Someone was trying to break into my office, they fled when they heard the alarms going off but if all goes well they will be down in the prison cell and we can deal with whoever they are and figure out what they want." He retorted.

Watching over the smaller man he noticed how utterly exhausted he was as he rubbed at his eyes, waiting for Jack to finish.

He jumped a little when Jack was suddenly in front of him, hands prying away Rhys own to see the bags under the boys eyes.

"Pumpkin, I mean this in the nicest way but you look like a freakin' zombie." He said, brushing the mans currently messy hair back to get a better look at his mismatched eyes.

Rhys had caught himself staring back for a moment before opening his mouth. "We uhh..need to get going if you are ready. We have to deal with the intruder and then I'm making the announcement about you today so.."

Watching the young man walk rise and walk he followed into the elevator, as the lean man pressed the floor for the basement, afterwards letting himself fix his hair and clothes to look more CEO presentable.

"Hey Cupcake." Jack started, a smug grin forming on his face. "Just gotta say hearing the way you talked to them into the phone like that, very hot." He teased, watching as the CEOs face instantly turned red.


	11. Chapter 11

Jack glanced around at the cells that were mainly empty as the pair walked down the long hallway. The younger had gone silent when they had gotten down there. He had only held his cybernetic hand out with a screen up and typed away at it as he walked, seeming to not need to look where he was going as he maneuvered around any obstacles in the hallway.

"So, Rhysie. Who do we get to rough up?" Jack suddenly asked, his hair a bit messy from just getting out of bed but still better then Rhys messy hair that he kept running his fingers through and groaning when it wouldn't cooperate without gel.  
"Two bandits it looks like. They said they look like just normal bandits so we will have to see." Rhys said, rounding the corner and only then turning back to make eye contact with the older man. "I need you to not hurt them right away so we can ask questions, 'kay?"

The older CEO rolled his eyes, earning him a glare from the younger man before he held his hands up and chuckled a little. "Okay, Okay. Fine. Totally won't kill anyone, right away. But I warn you princess the second they piss me off I will shoot their ugly faces. I hate the bandits on this planet. Hell I hate this planet in general."

Rhys shook his head as he stopped in front of and cell guarded by two large men. He reached for the door when he heard the guards shouting.

"Sir, get behind us!" The one yelled, aiming the gun at Jack, his face filled with horror as he looked like he had seen a ghost, which was well accurate to the truth.

"Hey Rhysie can ya get the guards to stop pointin' their guns at me if I'm not aloud to kill anyone?' Jack asked with a little bit of annoyance in his tone, he stood glaring at the two guards that still both had their guns at him, not flinching and ready to shoot him any second.

"Shit, yeah. Guys he's with me, don't hurt him." Rhys said, shaking his head. "Also, I am going to tell everyone everything today so keep this quiet about this until then."

With that they glared at Jack but slowly lowered their weapons before opening the door for Rhys. "There you go sir, they are right inside. If you need anything just call for us." The one said, his blonde hair peaking out from the helmet he wore, his voice sounding fairly young as he spoke as well. The man had to be new there. Jack thought to himself.

"Jack, c'mon." Rhys shouted, already walking into the room where a pair of grungy looking bandits sat on two old chairs. The one was panicking, his eyes shooting around the room before landing on Rhys. He had been struggling to get free but unable to break the chains that were wrapped around their wrists.

The other bandit on the other hand just glared at Rhys and Jack as they walked in.

Rhys looked at the pair and crossed his arms. "So lay it on me. What were you two morons trying to get?" He questioned. His voice low and dangerous as he spoke.

"You." The one growled, letting himself smirk. "She's quite angry. I mean breaking a deal that big is a big thing."

The CEOs eyes widened for a moment as panic hit him. It took him a moment to respond but when he did he turned away, knocking on the door from their side.

The entire time Jack leaned against the wall, staring at the pair as he heard Rhys speak. "Hey, can I borrow one of those." He asked. A moment later coming into Jacks vision as he now held one of the guards small handguns, aiming it at the one he spoke again, this time his voice was more shaking and obviously terrified. "Where's she hiding out?!"

When silence filled the room Rhys groaned and shot the cocky bandit in the leg, listening to the loud shriek he got in response.

"Next bullet goes in your fuckin' head." Rhys growled, aiming it higher. "Where. The. Hell. Is. She!"

"Fuck you." He responded, falling limp as another bullet went off and straight through his head.

Rhys threw the gun down and walked over to the second bandit who was visibly trembling.

"How about you? Want to join your friend here or are you gonna actually tell me something?!" He questioned with a dark tone.

"I-I don't know! She...only talks to us over the phone! I-I don't know where she is hiding. P-Please let me go." He cried out, tears running down his face.

Rhys rolled his eyes and turned away to walk out of the room. "Lock him up." He said simply to the guards as he continued to walk. "Also you may want to call someone to clean up that mess in there."

Jack smirked and followed Rhys, wrapping an arm around him. "That was hot kitten." He teased as Rhys pressed the button on the elevator. "What fun do you have planned next?"

"Our 'fun' is going to be us sitting in the office working on paperwork for a bit before I make the announcement." Rhys responded, his voice still a little shaky. "And getting a coffee at some point."

Jack whistled as they entered the large office. "You really did good for yourself after Hyperion. I mean daaamn look at this, hard to believe this is Atlas."

Rhys shrugged and sat down in his large chair and started to look over paperwork. "It's hard to believe this is all mine now, even after three years." Rhys said quietly.

"You seem to be doing well enough. Just seems to be a lot of bandit attacks which yours truly can easily take care of." Jack chuckled, pulling a chair up to the desk and sitting next to him, reaching over he grabbed about half of the papers, sitting them in front of himself as he gave Rhys a small smile.

They sat like that for a little over an hour, silence in the room as they sorted through papers, just approving and denying some along with signing the ones that needed it, Rhys had caught the flow of it all and had forgot he was even working when he heard Jacks voice.

"So who did you piss off anyway?" Jack asked suddenly, looking over at Rhys. "The bandits were talkin' about some girl you broke a deal with and you looked pretty traumatized at that. So who is it?"

Rhys tensed up and shook his head, looking away and avoiding making eye contact with the older man. He knew the man would react poorly if he told him the truth so he calmed himself a little and put on a small smile. "It's no one...just someone I met and I made a stupid little deal three years ago when I brought Atlas back to it's feet."

He was grateful when the older man dropped the subject and went back to the papers for a little while longer, Rhys occasionally glancing at him.

After a while he knew what was going to have to happen and he reached over to push the intercom, only to stop right above it, his hands trembling as he started to think about everything.

Everyone was going to be angry at him, he knew that already. He just brought their worst enemy back to life, but still it wasn't until now that he realized how bad this could be, other things could happen to any of them, including death. The possibility of his friends turning their backs on him was the worst of all though, he had grown close to them and didn't want this to break them apart, but he also knew that he couldn't just hide jack forever. It was already hard enough and it wasn't fair to anyone, including Jack himself.

He was pulled from his thoughts when he felt a large hand reach under his flesh hand and squeeze it gently.

"Pumpkin, calm down." The words were gentle and surprisingly relaxing despite coming from the man who was far from that. "Everything is gonna be fine, okay? You need to breathe. Speak or nod if you can understand me right now."

It took longer then usual to process the words but when he did Rhys started nodding, tightening his hand to hold the older mans hand tightly. "Everything is gonna be fine." He repeated out loud.

"Yes. Now this is what we are gonna do. You are gonna make the announcement and then we are gonna go back to the apartment and we are gonna order a pizza and relax on the couch. After that you are gonna go to sleep because, damn kitten you look exhausted and that's probably adding to your shaken up state right now." Jacks words surprised Rhys as he listened to the man talk. He was calming him down slowly with his soothing words.

Without another word the older man reached over and pressed the button for Rhys, nodding at him to talk. But when he got nothing again he sighed and opened his mouth.

 _'I won't let anything happen to ya.'_ he mouthed to the young man, rubbing his back to calm him as Rhys finally found his words again.

"Hello. This will be quick but...I have an..uh..a big announcement." Rhys started off.

By the end of it Rhys was glad his flesh hand was holding Jack rather then his Cybernetic because he knew he would have broken his hand otherwise with how much he was squeezing it.

It was done now though and there was nothing else to do or say about it all. The entire Atlas facility now was told Handsome Jack was their Co-CEO and that he was here to do them all good. To prove it Jack had even been nice just for the young man and said hello and gave a few words, being as nice as he could possibly manage as he looked at the younger brunette man.

After the announcement though the pair practically bolted to Rhys apartment, using the stairs instead of the elevator as people rarely used them and when they finally got inside both men let go of a breath they hadn't known they had been holding.

It wasn't until they were locking the door that Rhys could hear his phone start to go off with a bunch of messages, no doubt from his friends but decidedly ignored them for the time being. Instead he had ordered some pizza for delivery and laid next to Jacks as they put in a cheesy horror film to relax and laugh at.

It was calming for Rhys to look at the smile that formed on the older mans face as he laughed at the movie, an arm around Rhys as he watched TV. He couldn't help but smile back at him before closing his eyes and letting himself drift off into a peaceful sleep for the moment.

Even if the company turned on him at least he now had Jack to stand beside him.


	12. Chapter 12

'R-Rhy...s..'

The sudden voice pulled Rhys from his sleep on the couch. Glancing around he noticed it was dark all around him except for a dull shine from the kitchen. Leaning back and closing his eyes he assumed it was just Jack getting a drink or something and started to drift to sleep.

"Rhys..." The voice spoke again more clear this time, pulling him to his feet as he glanced around. That voice wasn't Jacks but it sounded oddly familiar.

Moving his feet slowly towards the source of the voice he finally entered the kitchen which was being lit by a single dull light.

"H-Hello? Who is it?" He asked, reaching over to rest his hand and lean on the counter, feeling something wet on his hand he looked down and was met with the sight of red, staining the entire kitchen. Screaming he fell back onto the floor, landing on a puddle of blood.

"Rhys...why did you do this to them?" The same voice said again more quiet this time.

Glancing over to his left he saw Fiona laying still on the ground as blood ran down her face from a large gash across her head. She was staring at something on his other side with sad eyes. Following her gaze Rhys saw Sasha also laying still but instead of a wound to her head she had a small kitchen knife stabbed into her stomach.

"F-Fi...Sash." He croaked out, unable to move. Closing his eyes tightly he started to let tears run down his face.

"You did this..you killed them. You killed me." It said again.

Opening his eyes he gasped as he saw Vaughn standing in front of him. Shuffling to his feet he started moving towards him only to watch as a knife plunged through his chest.

"Look what you did." He said softly, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth. "You killed us..I thought..I was your friend."

Reaching towards him Rhys watched as the knife was retracted and his body fell to the ground.

"Rhysie.." Jack stood there behind where Vaughn had been, his entire body covered in blood.

"J-Jack what did you do?!" Rhys yelled, his voice cracking as he yelled.

"Me? I didn't do anything cupcake. This..." he stopped speaking to gesture around them at the bodies of his friends laying there. "This was all you. Look at the blood on your hands, you killed everyone. This is all your fault."

"N-No..I couldn't have. I didn't do anything!" He screamed out, watching in horror as blood started to drip down Jacks throat as a gash had appeared slowly across it. Jack opened his mouth and let blood drip out of his mouth as he went to speak, only choking on the blood instead.

Looking down Rhys noticed the bloody knife now in his hand and his throat clenched up.

"J-Jack." He practically whispered, throwing the knife away from him and backing up into a wall, his entire body trembling as tears ran down his face. The lack of response from Jack was the most terrifying thing to the younger man as he simply stood there, choking on the blood.

Gasping, Rhys jolts up to find he is back on the couch, sweat dripping down his forehead. His breath was shallow as he let tears run down his face, eyes wide in horror.

"It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't..." He started mumbling quietly to himself in between his short panicked breaths, slowly trying to calm himself down and forget about what happened in the nightmare. Instead he started to curl up and hug himself with his flesh arm.

"Rhysie, cupcake?" Jacks voice said suddenly, shuffling from his side and reaching up to touch his back. "What ya doing up, kiddo?"

When Rhys tried to reply but nothing came out but short panicked breaths the older man reached over and turned on the small lamp that sat on the small side table beside the couch. He quickly noticed the tears that were running down the younger mans face and the panicked expression on his face.

Closing the gap between them Jack pulled Rhys onto his lap and started to rub his back, whispering quiet calming words to him as he sat there calming himself down.

"You good?" He questioned when Rhys tears had finally stopped after a few minutes.

"Y-Yeah. I-I'm sorry." The cybernetic man mumbled into Jacks chest as he buried his face further into it.

"Hey. Hey look at me." Jack reached down and grabbed the younger mans chin, pulling his face up to look him in the eyes. "You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, kid. I'm assuming you just had a bad nightmare, right?"

Hesitating Rhys slowly started to nod, unable to move his face too much with Jacks grasp on his chin still. It was calming as he felt the older mans hand drift upwards and onto his cheek, running his thumb along it and he just couldn't help but lean forward into the touch a little.

"Why...Why are you being nice about this?" Rhys asked, closing his eyes as Jacks hand moved and he ran his fingers through his hair gently to calm him even more.

It was silent for a long moment before Jack spoke. "When my first wife died I started having nightmares of what happened. My daughter...my Angel couldn't control her powers as a siren and...she killed her and I returned home to that. Then after that things just got worse and worse. I got betrayed by those I thought were 'friends' and when Angel herself betrayed me and died, right before I was killed the nightmares were the worst." He closed his eyes and stopped his movements, his breath stopping for only a slight moment before picking up again. "Anyway what I am saying is I get how awful those nightmares can be and I trust you enough to tell you these things, which is saying a lot for me seeing as I don't trust people, but if you need me I'm here for you and I want you to be okay since we are... _partners?"_ He said the last part like a question.

Rhys sat there surprised before he caught on, nodding a little before feeling lips press against his cheek. "Yeah, partners." Rhys said quietly, a slight blush on his cheeks.

"Well, now that we are up and awake, let's go to the store ya got here and get some actual food so we...or well correction, I, can make some breakfast for us. You like that idea?"

Rhys smiled. "Sounds like a great idea."

The pair went to the store and were lucky that most people were either at work already or sleeping as it was only 4am. They received a few looks from the other customers and workers. Which Rhys instantly knew that it was because Jack had actually been outside for the first time for people to see, so they couldn't help but stare.

After they were done and were carrying the bags towards the apartment, with Jacks one arm firmly wrapped Rhys waist as they walked the entire time, Rhys heard his name being called out.

Whipping around he saw Fiona standing there, her lips pulled into a frown and her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. He thought about running for it but instead felt Jacks arm tighten around his waist. "You're fine. I got ya babe." He whispered, seeing how nervous Rhys was.

"Rhys, you have a _lot_ of explaining to do!" She growled as she approached the pair.

"And I can do so, I just...can you wait a little bit." He said, running his fingers through his already messy hair. "Please, Fi."

Her face lightened up a little when she saw the tired look in his eyes and how nervous he was acting right now. "Meet me by weapons at 8... _Alone_." She commented quickly before quickly turning on her heal and walking off.

"Now for breakfast." Jack said, leading the way back to the apartment.

When they had finally got back Rhys watched Jack cook with a smile as he made them breakfast. He'd occasionally look down at his phone and check his schedule for the day which was luckily fairly empty. "I'm gonna go meet with Fiona at 8, then we have an appointment with accounting at 10 which should go quick since it's just with Vaughn. Then it's simply just a few in office meetings with people coming in with proposals and stuff." He said, looking up at Jack who now sat across from him, a plate now full of food in front of each of them.

When he saw this Rhys was quick to dig in, quietly moaning after taking a bite. "Damn this...this is amazing!"

"Of course it is. I mean I made it and I'm great." Jack joked, starting to eat his own food with a smile.

They talked casually and joked like that for a while as they ate, the time quickly flying by.

"Here." Rhys said holding his hand out to take the plate from Jack. "You made the food, I'll do the dishes."

"'Kay." Jack said, watching Rhys walk away from the table to start doing dishes. Watching him from behind Jack smirked a little, letting his eyes wander down the younger CEO's body.

"Jack, you are staring so hard I can just feel you staring." Rhys chuckled, finishing up the dishes and turning around to look to him.

Approaching the table he stopped in front of the older man and smiled, feeling a hand immediately wrap around his waist and pull him close. Rhys just chuckled a little, leaning towards Jack before the older man closed the distance and pressed a few kisses to his lips before pulling away slightly but not too far as he caught his bottom lip and started nipping on it. Rhys let a soft moan escape his lips before closing the distance even more, wrapping his arms and legs tightly around the older man as he sat on his lap now. When he felt Jacks tongue enter his mouth he started squirming a little, feeling his pants get tighter and letting a few more louder moans escape his lips.

"God kitten. I am already loving those sounds." Jack growled into his ear as he pulled away for a moment just to move to his neck and started to kiss gently.

It was when he bit down on Rhys shoulder that the younger man gasped and shuddered, grinding down into the older man who had at the time also been moving his hands along his body in gentle touches.

Rhys closed his eyes when Jacks tongue licked up the blood from the bite on his shoulder.

He opened his mouth, about to say something when his phone suddenly started ringing, causing both men to pause for a moment before groaning.

Rhys had quickly answered it but refused to move from Jacks lap, unable to hide the displeasure from his voice as he spoke. "What?" There was a long pause before he grumbled. "Then fix it!"

He shook his head and listened to the other man ramble on the other end before speaking again. "Fine, get a car ready, I'll be there in five minutes." He said before hanging up and throwing his phone in his pocket, he quickly pushed himself off of Jack and shuffled around grabbing a few items, including a gun and his baton he always took with him.

When he saw Jack again, now standing closer to the door he frowned and hugged the older man tightly "I'm sorry for this. It keeps happening to us." He grumbled before pulling away to further explain what was going on. "One of our smaller bases apparently had an issue with their code out there which is breaking down a lot of the security out there and since the programmers are apparently morons and can't fix it on their own I have to go do it."

Sighing Jack gave Rhys another kiss. "Be careful out there kitten. Also, I'm hoping to continue this and not get interrupted when you get back." he whispered into his ear.  
"Y-Yeah...definitely." Rhys blushed slightly. "By the way...I uhh..ordered you a nice phone and it should be arriving soon, hopefully today, but here's my number if it does when I'm gone. If you really need me though you can go to the office and call me through that phone. I'll actually try to be back by tonight since luckily this location is only an hour away, it's just a matter of how long it takes me to get it all done."

Jack nodded, saying his final goodbyes before watching Rhys walk out the door, leaving him alone for the day.

Rhys was grateful when he finally got there, the drive had been extremely long and awkward with the small group of people that came with, all of which were either new and to nervous to talk to him or just gave him one word responses. He ended up near the end of the drive sitting in the back of the car on his phone messaging Fiona. He had told he was sorry and that something came up and he had to leave which she had seemed annoyed at but still understood what he had to do being CEO.

"Okay, this shouldn't take long. Let's get in and out." He said, walking into the Atlas building.

He had made it a few steps before skidding to a stop when he saw blood on the floor in front of him, his eyes widening as his nightmare came back to him, shaking his head he tried to forget about it, his stomach only churning when he looked over slightly and saw the dead bodies of several mutilated employees laying there.

He heard his phone suddenly go off and answered it, quickly turning away from the bodies so he didn't have to look at them any more, despite this he still saw more blood where he had turned, blood trails leading to the spots where some had died, probably as they tried to get away.

"H-Hello?" He practically whispered, almost gagging as the smell finally hit him.

"Hey Kitten." Jacks voice purred through the other end. "I was bored so I called. How's all that coming along?"  
"It uhh...I...Just...Give me a second." He said, seeing the others with their weapons approaching him. "Keep your eye out for who or whatever attacked them and do _NOT_ let it escape." He said to them before talking to Jack once more, his voice shaky as he spoke. "S-Sorry, there's just an...incident here.."

"An Incident?"

"I found the dead bodies of my employees out here."

"Bodies? You...are you okay there, kitten?" He questioned, sounding concerned now.

"I'm fine, I just...I need to get away from the smell right now and figure out what..." He trailed off as he saw something written in blood on the one wall.

 _'Should have chosen red.'_

"Rhysie? Kitten? You got quiet, you good there?" Jack said from the other end.

"Shit no, we need to get out of here!" Rhys yelled to the others that were still searching. He held tightly onto the phone as he walked towards the exit. "Jack I'll call you back."

"Rhys Don't hang u-"

Rhys turned his phone off and looked away in time only to stop suddenly at the entrance when he noticed there was a fresh body laying there, a gash across their throat. He recognized this as one of the guards who came with him and instantly rushed to go outside to get out as quick as he could, only stopping as he saw a group of bandits aiming their guns at him before starting to shoot at him.

"Kill them!" Rhys shouted to the remaining employees left as he dived back inside and behind the wall, reaching for his own gun.

Rhys had ran out of bullets in his gun thirty minutes ago and instantly decided to retreat further into the building. Every other room was still covered in blood and bodies littered the place but he ignored them until he entered an empty room in the far back of the building.

Sitting there the woman that sat beside him stared blankly at the wall, her hands gave away how scared she was as she shook with her gun tight in her hands. The man who was left sat on the other side of the room, closer to the door and he himself was no better as he continued to drum his fingers on his leg, nervously waiting for something to happen.

Rhys had said sorry a few times to them, it still was a horrifying experience and he recognized the two as newer employees. Rhys had occasionally stood up and paced around the room, searching for anything to help them but never found anything new, instead they had two bullets in the womans gun let, none on the other guard and Rhys had his stun baton. He had also been unable to contact anyone to get backup.

They sat like that until the door inevitably finally opened and a bullet shot straight into the heart of the man by the door.

"No!" The girl screamed, tears running down her face as she tried to back up but was only met with the wall behind her. She closed her eyes as another bullet went off, her body collapsing to the ground.

Rhys looked at the bodies then back at the bandit, grabbing his stun baton he bolted towards the other man, swinging to hit his shoulder so he not only dropped his gun but flew back into the wall behind him.

"You!" The man screamed after a moment, obviously pissed at Rhys actions, he charged towards Rhys and knocked him to the ground, pinning him down he grabbed a knife from his pocket and swung down to stab Rhys who was barely able to blocked it with the stun baton.

The pair stayed like that for a while, the bandit kept trying to push the blade down a little further to kill Rhys who was using all the strength he had to keep his grip on the stun baton with both hands.

Rhys heard his phone ring from his back pocket finally and he grumbled a little, of course now he was about to die someone decided to call him back to see what was going on.

"You shouldn't have done what you did! She's angry and ordered us to kill you and your friends now!" The bandit said suddenly.

Rhys started losing his grip on the baton that was keeping him from being stabbed, his arms starting to shake.

"You're losing your energy. Come on just let me stab you already so we can finish this." The bandit said, pushing more onto the weapon. "Just die!"

Rhys couldn't help when he finally lost his grip and dropped the baton but was able to quickly move over slightly so it only cut along his flesh arm, leaving a long deep gash there.

"Time for you to finally die." The bandit said, pulling back up to stab him again.

The sound of a shot rang through the room and Rhys watched the body on top of him go still and fall down to lay on him.

"R-Rhys." Jack was standing in the doorway, panting as sweat ran down his face as a sign that he had ran there. He stood there for a moment longer before putting his gun away and running to Rhys, throwing the body off of him with ease and pulling him up into his arms to hold him close.

"J-Jack." The smaller man buried his face into Jacks chest and clung to him, taking in his scent. Jack was here, Jack had saved his life.

"You..saved him." Another voice said in the doorway where Jack had just been standing. "You could have easily let him die and you saved him."

Turning over Jack looked at Fiona and Sasha who were both standing in the doorway. Rhys glanced to them and let a weak smile form on his face. "See..not a bad guy like you guys thought." he said before placing his hand on his injured arm, flinching a little at the pain.

The sisters looked at each other before back at Jack.

"Fine, you did save his life when you could have killed him and you were the one who got us here so...I guess we have to say...thank you or whatever, don't let it go to your head." Fiona said suddenly, quickly adding. "But if you hurt him you die."

"And its not just us to worry about, you have the entire Atlas facility which will be after your head, along with a decent amount of Pandoran residents. Rhys means a lot to all of us." Sasha added.

"Yeah, yeah." Jack rolled his eyes, not really paying attention to them as he was holding Rhys close to him. "Let's get you home, baby. I hate to say it but you are probably going to need stitches for that."

When they got in the car Rhys sat next to Jack, holding onto his hand. A few people were staying behind to help clean up the mess, Rhys had told them to bury the bodies and get a list of names of his employees so they could contact the families and tell them the sad news.

He quietly thanked everyone who helped him out before leaning into Jacks side and closing his eyes.

Despite all attempts to sleep on the way home his mind still went back to that one comment.

 _'She's angry and ordered us to kill you and your friends now!'_

He knew this was going to happen eventually, but now he realized how bad it was and he realized he was going to have to tell them all the entire truth soon for their own safety.

He was not looking forward to that.


	13. Chapter 13

He couldn't sit still. After they had returned to the facility they had Rhys patched up immediately. Following the few hours that took to stitch him up and ask him a thousand questions he set up a meeting with all of his friends. So here he stood at the edge of the table, unable to stay still, pacing back and forth as the final few arrived.

Athena, who Rhys was scared of the most was luckily more calm after Fiona and Sasha told her about Jack saving his life and luckily she simply glared at Jack and nodded towards Rhys, saying a simple. 'I'm glad you are safe.' to him before taking her seat next to Janey.

"I guess that's everyone." Rhys said, stopping his pacing to stand beside Jacks seat for a moment. His eyes wandered over the table at everyone.

"So I'm assuming you want to talk about what happened at the other facility." Fiona said, crossing her arms and leaning back in her chair.

Rhys nodded and turned away from them for a moment before sighing and taking his seat. He had been thinking about how much to tell them now and how to even approach the subject all day but despite preparing for it he still couldn't find the words now that all of their eyes, including Jacks, were on him.

"It wasn't a coincidence." He finally stated. "The attack wasn't like our normal bandit attacks."

"What ya mean, Pumpkin?" Jack asked, looking beside him where Rhys was.

Unable to stay seated for long, Rhys pushed himself up again and gestured with his hands as he spoke. "I messed up."

They all sat there quietly, waiting for him to elaborate on what he meant.

"I made a deal with a dangerous group of people. I couldn't follow through on my half of the deal, which really pissed them off when they found out. Their leader was the one who sent that hit out on me today. It wasn't a normal bandit attack. They want me...they want us all dead now." He Said, rushing his words together.

Jack stood up and wrapped an arm around Rhys shoulders. "If that's the case then we will all keep an extra eye out so they can't get to us." He said.

"What exactly did you agree to bro?" Vaughn asked suddenly.

Rhys shook his head, showing he didn't want to talk about it right now. "I just want you guys to know I'm sorry for everything lately. I will do my best to keep you all safe too, no matter what."

"Don't worry about it. We understand the stress you must be under lately." Sasha commented.

Rhys nodded, looking at them all. "That's all I wanted to discuss right now. Sorry for keeping you. I will tell you more soon." He said.

Jack and Rhys stood in the meeting room as everyone left. After they were all gone Jack had turned to look at Rhys, a soft expression on his face. "I really am glad you are fine." He said, leaning in to brush his lips against the younger mans softly.

"All thanks to you." The younger CEO said quietly.

They both stood there in silence for a moment, Jack simply placing small kisses down Rhys neck before the younger man cleared his throat and spoke a little louder, his voice still shaky and nervous though. "H-Hey Jack. What would you think about uhh going on an uhh..date..with me now? Just a little something to get us out and our minds off everything." He asked.  
Jack paused and for a moment, his lips lingering over Rhys neck before he chuckled a little, pulling away to plant a kiss on his cheek. "I'd love too, kitten." He said, before turning to leave the room.

The younger boy took a moment before he followed him out the door, a small smile on his face.

Being a CEO has it's big perks, some of which being you can get almost anything you want in the company and no one asks any questions they just give it to you. So when Rhys and Jack arrived at the nicest restaurant inside of Atlas it wasn't a surprise that the employees led them past all of the people and upstairs to their second floor where they only held large private events, leaving the pair to decide what they wanted to eat and leaving a large bottle of wine.

After they ordered they sat there and drank a little while talking.

"So before everything did you honestly look up to me?" Jack brought up as one of the questions.

Rhys blushed a little and nodded, taking a long sip of his wine before speaking. "I mean, everyone wanted to be you at Hyperion. It should come as no surprise that I did too. Especially since you did technically save me and gave me a job."

Jack gave Rhys a confused expression which told him to explain what he was talking about.

"The truth...I lost my arm in an accident when I was in school still. I was going to school for programming and you kind of can't do that kind of work and succeed with one arm. I always wanted to work at Hyperion so my dreams there were thrown out the window so fast. But shortly after the accident and right before I dropped out of school I got an offer from Hyperion. You guys were asking for volunteers for an experiment and were looking into desperate people. There were 4 people beside me who got the invite but by some miracle I was the one who was chosen to be the most qualified after a series of tests."  
"I remember that. They had me look through a list of people and pick out 5 so they could go through with it. I can't believe I didn't remember your name on the list." He said, shaking his head. "Hell, I even went down to see you the day of your surgery. I told you if you survived all of your loans would be paid off. Hell you were a brave kid, you agreed last minute to the surgery on your eye too. Why didn't you tell me this all earlier?"

"Because you had how many employees, one simple experiment is forgettable. I know that." Rhys commented, leaning on his hand and looking over as their food arrived.

"Trust me kitten, you are far from forgettable." The older man said, taking a bite of his food and smiling.

Their date continued going well from there. They shared small stories, laughed and drank and by the end of the night Rhys could feel a slight buzz, but was still sober enough to understand everything going on.

"I had a lot of fun." Rhys said, twirling his keys as they walked back to the apartment.

"You know, kitten. I did too." Jack said with a genuine smile on his face.

Walking into the apartment they took their coats off and put their containers with the leftover food they couldn't finish in the fridge.

Rhys afterwards grabbed a cup of water, filling it up and drinking it as he watched Jack move around to sit his stuff down the white button down shirt he had on fit him well and Rhys couldn't help but stare at him.

"Like what you see?" Jack asked, not looking away from what he as doing.

"If I say yes will you get over here and kiss me already?" Rhys asked, leaning against the counter, trying to sound as confident as possible. Before he knew it he was being boxed in and Jack was leaning in, pressing a kiss to his lips, the younger man opening his mouth slightly as an invitation.

Jack caught on and deepened the kiss, pulling away slightly to catch Rhys lips in between his teeth.

Their bodies staying tight against each other as they continued to kiss, both could feel the other growing harder.

Jack pulled away after a moment and looked at a dazed Rhys whos face was slightly red.

"Bedroom." He said simply, letting Jack wrap his arms around him and pull him up, wrapping his own legs and arm around the man in the process as he was carried towards his bedroom. Jack gently laid Rhys down on the bed and hovered over him for a moment, looking at the younger man underneath him before leaning down and pressing his lips against the other mans again.

As he was doing this his one hand went to his tie, pulling it off and throwing it across Rhys room, not caring where it landed.

Rhys who still had his limbs wrapped around him, worked at Jacks shirt buttons, gasping slightly when the mans fingers slid under his own shirt and stroked his sides gently as he bit down playfully on Rhys neck. He started to grind against the younger man, causing a moan to escape his lips.

"P-Pants off." Rhys demanded before moving at his own clothes to get them off, hands shaky as he tried to unbutton his shirt.

"I can fix that kitten." Jack said after he quickly removed the remaining clothes he had on. Reaching over he ripped his shirt open, sending a few buttons flying as he broke them and threw the shirt aside, placing kisses down the younger mans neck before sliding his tongue along the tattoo on his neck.

Rhys gasped and tugged his pants and boxers off, being more successful then his shirt, wrapping his legs around Jacks again, their naked bodies pressed against each others.

"Where is the-"

"Top drawer." Rhys interupted, pointing to the nightstand, watching the older mans every move as he reached over, opened the drawer and pulled lube and a condom out from the nightstand. "Wait."

Jack paused and looked over at Rhys, unable to hide his surprise. "What's up, kitten? You okay?"

Rhys gestured towards where his pants were laying beside the bed now. "Give me my phone."

Jack sat there in shock for a moment before grabbing his phone and handing it over, watching the boy as he took the battery out and tossed the pieces besides the bed. "We're not getting interrupted this time. I want no risks of it." He said suddenly.

"Oh kitten you are perfect." Jack purred, planting kisses on Rhys throat before opening the lube, pouring some on his hand and placing the bottle beside him on the bed. "Ready kitten?"

Rhys simply nodded gasping as he felt one of Jacks hands come down to stroke him, while with the other hand he had a cold finger slowly teasing into Rhys who sensitive by all the touches now.

He slowly felt a finger ease into him slowly, stopping to give him time to adjust before Jack moved it a little.

"J-Jack." Rhys moaned out quietly, arching his back up. "M-More."

Grinning Jack slowly slid in another finger, working at a steady pace inside of him with his fingers, spreading them apart inside of him, hearing his gasping and moaning now, his dick leaking with pre cum.

He spent a while with just the two fingers inside of him before he finally slid in the third, after the boy started whining and begging him to.

"Jaack come on, please give me more." The younger boy cried out after only a few minutes, looking up at Jack with lust filled eyes as he spoke.

That was all it took to set Jack off.

"Fuck Kitten your so hot." He purred into his ear, pulling his fingers out slowly and listening to the whine he got and taking pleasure in it. Rhys squirmed a little under him as Jack took his hand off his dick. "Don't worry, I'll definitely take good care of you, Baby."

Grabbing the condom he ripped the package open with his teeth, sliding it on slowly, glancing down at Rhys who was squirming impatiently watching him, biting his bottom lip as he watched Jack roll it onto his cock.

Making eye contact with the younger man Jack slowly poured lube onto his fingers and coated the condom, watching the boys mouth open slowly and a small whimper come out Jack chucked at the younger man. "You want it?"

"God, yes. Jack please!" Rhys begged, tugging on him gently, desperately trying to get him closer.

Aligning himself up Jack focused on Rhys face as he slowly slid his cock into him. Watching the boys face twist into pain for a moment as he adjusted. Jack himself had gasped at how tight he was around him in that moment.

After a moment Rhys nodded to him and told him to move and with that he slowly pulled out only to thrust back into him again.

After clumsily doing that for a moment he finally set a steady pace inside of the younger CEO.

"Ahh Fuck Jaaack!" He gasped out, his face twisted in pleasure now. He had started to dig his flesh hand into Jacks back, which was surely going to leave marks, while his cybernetic hand was digging into the sheets. "Oh god, R-Right there. More."

"God, you are beautiful kitten." Jack said, thrusting harder into the spot the younger man seemed to be enjoying, leaning forward to plant kisses down Rhys throat.

Tightening his legs even more around Jack Rhys moaned out loudly, letting go of the sheets and wrapping his cybernetic arm around him, clinging to him as he felt the older man thrust into him roughly. Gasping he felt Jack bite down on his shoulder, definitely leaving a mark before continuing up, leaving bites all up his neck and licking it after.

Quiet moaning filled the room as Jack kept moving inside of the younger man harder, looking down at the younger man he couldn't help the small smile at the sight that he saw.

The room was poorly lit by a single lamp Rhys had on the wooden nightstand beside the bed but Jack could still make out the details of Rhys face, the way he panted every time Jack thrust into him and the way his lips moved as he moaned. Reaching between them Jack started to stroke Rhys dick and watched his mouth opened and a quiet whimper that escaped his lips at the touch. After a second he started to quickly stroke him as he continued to hit the same spot thrusting into him. He knew Rhys seemed to be enjoying it by the way his eyes clamped shut and the way he kept moaning, occasionally letting out a few swear words along with Jacks name.

"Fucking, kitten your all hot and sweaty moaning under me." Jack moaned himself, knowing he probably looked similar to Rhys at this moment. His body growing hot and sweaty himself.

He was caught off guard as his cybernetic hand pulled his face down to Rhys and the younger mans lips clashed with his own, their lips started moving like they fit together like puzzle pieces, his tongue sliding into the boys mouth after only a second.

In this moment Jack realized how calm he was. He felt relaxed and at home with Rhys right now, their bodies rubbing against each other and their lips fitting together, Jack started off with teasing the boy and realized quickly that he had a small crush on the boy, but just now did he realized just how bad it was.

"God, I like you so much, Rhysie. Your so perfect and your so good to me, listen to those moans." Jack admitted, thrusting into him harder and deeper, his entire cock slamming into him as he gasped out in pleasure.

"J-Jaack, I-I'm gonna..." Rhys gasped, digging his fingernails into Jacks back more as he stilled and came on his stomach and Jacks hand with a loud moan.

Hearing the moan from the younger man beneath him really turned Jack on and it wasn't long before Jack slammed one more time into Rhys and came himself, panting a little he collapsed on top of the brunette boy as he caught his breath.

"D-Damn not as young as I use to be." He chuckled, resting his head on Rhys flesh shoulder that was littered with bites.

"I don't know what you are talking about, that...that was great. _You_ were great." Rhys said, his face red as he was trying to catch his breath, looking at Jack he smiled after a moment. "Also..I uhh..I like you too, Jack, a lot. I guess that should be clear by now though."

Jack gave Rhys a small friendly smile, looking so much different now. He looked more exposed.

Looking at him Rhys watched as Jack slowly slid himself out of Rhys and pushed himself up.

Jack felt Rhys eyes on him the entire time as he moved out of the room, throwing the condom away in the bathroom and returning with a washcloth he cleaned Rhys off, throwing it aside after he was clean and laying on the bed beside Rhys, kissing the top of his head.

Smiling, Rhys turned to look at him, reaching up to touch his mask that he wore, his touches gently as he stroked his cheek gently.

Jack tensed up visibly after he had touched his face but closed his eyes and leaned into the touches after a moment. "Go ahead, Take it off." He practically whispered to Rhys.

Catching him off guard Rhys met Jacks eyes with surprised before asking him if he was sure. Jack simply nodded and reached his own hand up to start undoing the clasps, taking it off and placing it on the nightstand beside them before looking at Rhys.

"Wow." Rhys whispered, running his finger along the scar on Jacks face. "You're so handsome. Why do you wear the mask?"

"Isn't it obvious, this giant ugly scar." Jack said, relaxing slightly as he felt Rhys gentle touches.

"It's not ugly." Rhys said simply, leaning forward and pressing multiple kisses on the Scar. "You are the most handsome man I have ever seen, with your mask on and off."

Surprised by this Jack smiled at Rhys, kissing him once before reaching over and turning the light off, feeling the younger man cuddle into his side, he wrapped an arm around him, feeling happier then he's been in years. "Night kiddo."

"Night Jack." He hears in response before they drift off to sleep.

Rhys woke up to the sizzling sound and smell of bacon in the morning along with the lack of presence beside him in bed.

Smiling he slowly sat up, realizing what had happened the night prior.

He immediately felt the pain course through his body as he stood up, stumbling for a moment as he threw on a pair of pants and grabbed the pieces of his phone putting it back together.

He slowly started walking towards the smell, hearing soft music playing in the kitchen.

Stopping in the doorway he noticed Jack in his normal pair of sweatpants moving around the kitchen, cooking. His eyes caught on the new marks on Jacks back that he knew were from him.

"Jack." Rhys said quietly after simply staring for a little while, his throat burning a little as he spoke.

Jack stopped and turned around, his mask was still not on, which caused Rhys to smile gently, happy the man trusted him this much.

A smile quickly appeared on Jacks face when he saw the younger man. "Hey kitten, sit down. Breakfast is almost done, just waiting on bacon." he said, grabbing two plates and filling them with all the other things he had made.

Once everything was done Jack sat the plate in front of Rhys and kissed him before moving to sit across from him, both digging into their food as they ate in mostly silence.

"So, any new news on the attacks?" Jack asked, gesturing towards Rhys phone which he had been scrolling through for the last few minutes.

"Not yet." Rhys answered simply as he finished eating, scrolling through the texts he saw one from a familiar number.

 _'Call me.'_

For a moment Rhys almost panicked just reading the message but he quickly pulled himself together and stood up slowly.

"I have to make a call real quick. I'll be back." Rhys said, leaning forward to kiss Jack before walking into one of his empty rooms, pacing back and forth as he listened to the ringing on the other end.

" _Rhys, you called."_ The familiar woman said suddenly in his ear.

"What do you want from me?" He said, immediately getting to the point.

" _Please do not make me do this, Rhys. You know what I want, I just want Jack, no one else has to get hurt."_ She responded.

Chuckling a little Rhys shook his head before speaking again. "You really aren't the person he knows you as."

" _I guess I could say the same about you, Rhys. I've spent a few years locked in a vault because of him, what's your excuse?" She responded, her voice getting louder._

"I saved your ass from that vault despite you trying to trap me in it. If it wasn't for my friends and I beating the vault monster you would still be trapped in there. I owe you nothing anymore so leave him and I alone."

" _I wouldn't have been trapped in there if it wasn't for Jack opening it and putting my dead body in it for 'safety'."_

"It wasn't him, I can tell you that now! The way he talks...it is clear he doesn't know." He said, growing angry himself. "Besides even if it was Jack who did that, he would have wanted to do it to keep your body safe, he had no way of knowing that would happen when putting a newly dead siren in a vault. You on the other hand knowingly wanted to erase all of his memories and use him as a weapon, controlling him for the benefit for your own group. I think you are the real ones at fault here."  
 _"Rhys do not start with me."_ She said, her voice sounding deadly.

"I think that vault changed you more then you are letting on because there is no way the real you I've heard from him would act this horrible." He continued, not caring what she said at this point.

" _Shut up! You don't know what I went through in that vault!" She shouted._

" _Listen.." she said calmly after a moment. "It's just Jack. He uses and kills people, this is good right? Isn't that you agreed to it."_

"You are right I did agree to it...but now I know that you were with the monster for so long that you started acting like one yourself. I know what you are gonna say, don't bother, there is no way I am letting you get Jack as long as I am still standing. So attack us here, we've taken on vault monsters before, we will take you on." He said.

" _Your death can be arranged, Rhys."_

He quickly hung up on her before thinking about her last words.

Great, now he was a dead man.

"Fuck.." He muttered, dropping his phone onto the ground and running his fingers through his hair. He took a moment before standing up, leaving his phone for right now, not wanting to be near it and leaving the room.

He immediately got stopped though, his eyes widening as he saw Jack standing just outside of it.

"Jack...uhh...what did you hear of that?" He asked quietly.

"Enough. So, who was it." Jack said, his voice sounding deadly. "Which one of them did you fucking make a deal with Rhys? Moxxie? Lilith? Which one of those backstabbers are you working with."

"It was neither of them." Rhys sighed and spoke just loud enough so Jack could hear him. "It was Angel, Jack."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14-

Rhys had been sitting on the couch, terrified for the last two hours as Jack silently paced in front of him. He had yet to say a word after Rhys told him and would only occasionally glance over at him as if to make sure he was still there.

After an agonizing two hours of that, Jack finally seemed to find his words, turning to look at Rhys and shake his head.

"You're lying." He said quietly. "Angel is dead, she's been dead for a long time. Her body was buried here on Pandora."

Rhys sat there, thinking about the last part of what he said. "Angels body was in the vault when I found her."

"What the hell are you talking about?" The older man asked, narrowing his eyes as he stood in front of the couch, towering over the younger man. "I buried her myself so if Angel was in the vault then-"

"She thinks you put her there after opening the vault, Jack." He said quietly, running his hand through his already messy hair. "Just...Listen here's the truth. After we opened the vault and entered Fiona and I were sent to different areas of it. She never told me what she really saw in there but me...I saw Angel. She came to me and told me that she wanted to bring you back, said it like she wanted to bring you back so you could 'fix your mistakes' and I...I mean I was still mad at you for all you did but I gambled and I decided to help her. She didn't tell me right away that she wanted to erase your mind...she wanted to control you."

Jack listened as he spoke, his face lacking any emotion so Rhys had no idea what he was thinking until he spoke. "That's not my Angel. She would never do something like that even to me."

"I know that now Jack. Well I kinda knew a bit all along but..She's changing...I think she's being controlled, being manipulated into helping whoever really put her in the vault. They wanted her to spend time in there to make her angrier so it would make it easier when they lied and told her it was you."

"How do you know all of this, Rhys?" Jack asked, crossing his arms, seeming suspicious of him.

"Because I can see it. I can see the changes slowly Jack. I know the way you talk about Angel, I know the stories about her, she wasn't a bad person, not really. I think she may be mad at you still from before but I don't think she would do something this bad unless she was getting told something wrong, especially with how far you've progressed as a person, and as for knowing that there is someone who is controlling her, I heard a few of her 'employees' talking about another person when her and I worked together, I brushed it off more then but now I finally thought about it and it's easier to piece together. Who knows though, I may be completely wrong." He shrugged, not wanting Jack to take his word for it just yet.

"If that's right then I need to find whatever shithead is controlling her." Jack growled out, his expression turning murderous.

Rhys nodded in agreement before looking away from him. "Jack, I really am sorry I kept this all from you I just-"

"Now..isn't the time Rhys. We will talk about this later but for now just get us a car, we are going bandit hunting."

"O-Okay Jack." Rhys said, quickly typing away to tell Yvette they needed a car.

The thing about living on Pandora was when you're searching for a bandit group is you not always find the one you are looking for. Searching for one specific group you could find 10 prior before you find someone you are looking for.

So here the two men were, yet another group of bandits were killed by Jack. "Ugh, more than half of this population is filthy bandits. I hate it." The older man said after killing another bandit. He had started off amused and laughing but after around two dozen bandits Jack grew annoyed, his temper starting to get the better of him as he would kill any bandit they came across if they didn't immediately tell him anything that he wanted to know.

"Jack, maybe we should head back soon, it's going to get dark out and you know how bad pandora is in the day, do you really wanna be out after dark?" Rhys asked, already moving to get back in the vehicle they had taken.

"Fine, but this one is coming with us. We need one of them and if he doesn't have information then he'll be fun to toy with." He said, grabbing the only bandit left that had passed out after Jack had been strangling him.

Since Jack drove around before Rhys had insisted on driving back to the company, winning an argument on it when he said that if the man in the backseat woke up Jack would be better at dealing with it than him. Although he knew he could simply stun him he honestly just needed to distract himself from thoughts of Angel and Jack.

They sat in silence for most of the drive before Jack finally couldn't stand it anymore. "Why did you really bring me back? I mean you had the choice to make me like your puppet and yet you...brought me back normally." He asked, turning his entire body towards Rhys as he drove. "I mean, I betrayed you, tried to kill you and yet you've been helping me out. Why..?"

"I..." Rhys bit his lip, not sure if he should tell him. "I almost didn't. I almost went through with it, but then you had to go and say you trusted me and...that you owed me and just...Fuck...your face...I've never seen you look so...caring towards me and I just...I don't know I thought..." He started to stammer at this point.

"I do trust you. The trying to kill you thing was, I'll admit, a big mistake on my part Rhys. I shouldn't have tried that I should have let you help me get a body sooner. Hell, if I didn't who knows what would have happened. We'd probably still be living life on Helios." He sighed at the thought of his old company. "I miss it, Cupcake. I worked there for years and then I became the CEO. I literally strangled my way to the top of that company I worked my ass to get there and it's all gone."

"I'm sorry too Jack. I thought it was my only option, I mean the only one where I actually survive." Looking towards Jack for a moment be bit his lip. "You were right though, I killed so many people when we crashed to this planet. Everything would have been different."

Looking at Rhys Jack let a small smile form on his lips. "At least I got your sweet ass still. I mean your ass isn't quite as amazing as Hyperion but second best." He teased.

Letting his eyes narrow Rhys turned and glared at Jack, a blush on his face as he did so. He was unable to hold the glare for too long though before chuckling a bit. "You just compared my ass to a space station." He realized before bursting out laughing, Jack following soon after.

"I guess I kinda did there." He laughed, shaking his head, tears in the corner of his eyes from laughing so hard.

When the laughter calmed Rhys finally asked the question that was bugging him. "Are we..okay Jack?"

Pausing Jack looked at him and leaned forward to kiss his cheek as he drove. "Yeah, we are. I mean I'm still pissed about this all but I don't blame you for it. I was an ass to you before when you put your trust in me. So if you forgive me I can forgive you."

"I forgive you."

"Good." Jack said, smile vanishing as the car started to slow, the engine making a rattling noise before stopping. "What the hell?"

"This is odd." Rhys said, getting out of the car and popping the hood of the car. "This doesn't happen. They always make sure the cars are in the best condition to drive and knowing Yvette she probably double checked." Rhys said, seeing the engine was shot.

Sighing Jack leaned against the car. "What do you wanna do, cupcake? Call for help and wait or start walking?"

"I honestly hate both options. I need to avoid Angel for a little while to let her calm down and-"

Looking down he saw his phone had gone off with a text message.

 _'Car Troubles?'_

Sighing Rhys shut the hood and hit his head before laughing out. "She's just toying with me before she kills me." He realized.

Leaning over his shoulder to read the message Jack nodded. "Check to see how far we are from Atlas and then check to see how far we are from lynchwood. Which is closer to our current position."

"Uh Both are about the same but...we could make it to Lynchwood easier. What's there?"

"Some friends. C'mon, you can just text someone to pick the car up if it doesn't get stolen before they get to it." Jack reached in the backseat and grabbed the bandit, throwing him over his shoulder he started walking.

"Friends? Jack are you sure they're reliable."

"Don't worry, Princess. They will help us out." He smiled as they walked.

"Jack..?" Rhys stuck close to the older man as they walked. Jack let a small grunt in response. "This...'friend' won't attack us right? I mean you were dead for a while and I-"

"Lynchwoods a safe enough place right now, cupcake. Trust me." Jack said, obviously to the looks they were getting to the few people living there. Walking up to one of the nicer looking houses he started to pound on the door.

Rhys stayed as close to Jack as he could, keeping his one hand close to his stun baton in case this went south.

"Who the hell is here at this time?! It's late!" A woman's voice called before the door swung open and a tall beautiful woman stepped out, sporting a cowboy hat on the top of her head that reminded Rhys of the one from Jacks old office.

"Heya Sheriff." Jack grinned at her.

She stared at him for a long time before laughing and pulling him into a hug. "I knew there was no way you could stay dead, Jack. Tim was doubting it but I didn't for a second."

"Is he here?" Jack asked, looking past her and into the house.

"Yeah, he kinda lives here now. Come on in we have a lot to catch up on and I'm assuming if you are here in person then something has happened." She said before walking back into the house.

"C'mon Cupcake. They are gonna help us out." Jack reached down and took Rhys hand, leading him into the house with him.


End file.
